


You're Not Alone

by popdiva24



Category: South Park
Genre: F/M, M/M, Male Friendship, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-03-19 03:30:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 33,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3594720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/popdiva24/pseuds/popdiva24
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After being forced to watch other families spend time with their families on Father's Day, Eric Carman decides to take matters into his own hands by tricking a famous celebrity into becoming his father so that he can have all the stuff that he's ever wanted. One question: can he do it? (Candy, Kebe, slight Stendy, and slight Kyman)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You're Not Alone

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter focuses on Cartman and Kyle.

* * *

 

Chapter 1: You're Not Alone

 

 

* * *

“…yle…”

“…Kyle…”

“…rise and shine, Bubbala or you’ll be late for school.” His mother’s voice called from the doorway.

Opening his eyes slightly, the red head groaned and pulled his blanket over his face when the lights from his room hit his eyes.

“Few more minutes, mom…” he replied tiredly from under the covers. He heard his mother’s footsteps stop near his bed.

“Kyle, you can’t stay in bed forever. Think about what you’ll be missing in those few minutes. A fine education, a chance to socialize with friends, and if you don’t hurry now mister, you’ll miss the bus and your father will have to take you to school and your father’s a very busy man. Need I remind you of his mood the last time he was late to work to take you to school, right?”

How could he forget? His dad wouldn’t stop lecturing him about how disappointed he was that he wouldn’t be able to pick up as many clients since Kyle had suddenly started picking up bad habits from the so-called friends he hangs around. He didn’t even give Kyle a chance to defend himself because his father would hear nothing of it.

No doubt he was put up to it by Kyle’s mother, but Kyle would never say that out loud. He was sure his mother would kill him.

The sad part about his mother’s constant nagging was that in all the time that he had been in elementary school, Kyle had only been tardy three times. The first time was when that douche Al Gore got him and his friends lost trying to find some nonexistent ManBearPig just so that he could gain publicity. The second time was when Kyle had been deathly ill and needed a kidney transplant from the one person who was ironically the only one who matched his AB blood type, Eric Cartman.

And the third time didn’t really count because Cartman had him on the phone looking up information all day about some Muslim kid named Bahir, and with his super best friend, Stan, along with multiple government agents in the room, it was like Kyle had never really missed school to begin with since he had to deal with all the same crap and still had to do homework on top of that.

However, since those times, he has always maintained perfect attendance. Yet, his mother never ceased to bring up those times no matter how many times he reminded her that they weren’t even his fault. For real, it wasn’t like he played hooky from school or anything.

“Okay, okay, mom…I’m getting up!” Kyle answered with a defeated sigh. He sat up in his bed and looked over at his alarm clock. 5:30 a.m. His mom got him up a half an hour before his alarm was set to go off. Again. Why he even bothers to set his alarm clock every night, he’ll never understand.

Ever since his mother caught wind of the exams that every student at Southpark Elementary would be taking in a couple of weeks, his mother took it upon herself to wake him up extra early to prepare him so that he wouldn’t oversleep when exam time rolled around. His mother took her children’s grades very seriously and didn’t want to risk any slipup that would impede his chance at getting into Harvard and becoming a successful attorney like his father.

His mother nodded. “That’s a good bubbe. And remember what mommy always tells you before you leave the house?”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘get straight A’s or don’t come back.’ Mom, I’ve got it. I promise that I won’t slack off at school.” He responded, getting up from his bed and heading down the stairs for breakfast.

Upon arriving at the kitchen, he saw Ike pouring himself a bowl of cheerios.

“Hey Ike. She wake you up early too?” Kyle greeted with a yawn.

“Yep.” Ike replied shortly, not bothering to cast a glance in his direction. The younger boy was still in his pjs like Kyle and looked like he had just come from being forced to clean the boy’s bathroom on Meatloaf Tuesday. His dark hair was a mess, his eyes were listless, he had dark circles underneath his eyes, and his shoulders were hunched over like a zombie.

Ike took his bowl and headed to the dining room table without another word. Kyle could relate. He doubted that he looked much better at the moment. Right now, all he wanted to do was go right back to his bed and sleep, but he knew his mother would never approve. She wanted to make sure that both boys were out of the house on time for school.

Kyle poured himself a bowl of Terrance & Phillip flakes and walked over to the table, taking a seat across from Ike. They both ate their cereal in silence, too tired to start up a conversation.

Once they were finished eating, both boys put their bowls in the sink and headed upstairs to change. As usual, Kyle let Ike use the bathroom first while he sorted out what clothes he would be wearing to school and made sure that all his homework and books were packed in his bag.

After about 15 minutes of waiting, the dark-haired boy left the bathroom and headed to his room leaving a steamy bathroom waiting for Kyle. Kyle entered the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

Staring at his reflection through the condensation of the mirror, Kyle picked up the toothbrush resembling Terrance from the Terrance & Phillip show and turned on the faucet to wet the brush. Putting some toothpaste on his toothbrush, he began brushing his teeth. As he did so, he couldn’t help but wonder how the day would go at school. In class last week, he remembered hearing the Ms. Garrison announce that she would be assigning a school project on the environmental impact of Global Warming.

It shouldn’t be too hard for him, considering the fact it is a hot topic that has been discussed for ages and there have been extensive resources on the subject online and at the school library. He only hoped that Stan wouldn’t try to team up with Wendy this time because she happened to be a wiz when it came to protecting the environment. He didn’t want to be stuck with someone like Butters or Bebe or, God forbid, Cartman, of all people. And he didn’t want to be paired up with an asshole like Craig. Or Clyde, who had just about as much personality as dry paint. But worst case scenario, he figured he could get either Kenny to work with him or work on it alone if he had to.

Kyle spat out the toothpaste in the sink and rinsed off his toothbrush. He looked up at the clock in the bathroom. 7:15 a.m. Just a half an hour left before the bus arrived. He knew had to hurry before his mother started yelling again.

…

Stepping out of the bathroom wearing only a towel, Kyle headed to his room and began changing into his normal outfit: an orange jacket with blue jeans and mittens. As usual, he put on the same green ushanka that he wore every day. He looked out the window. It looked overcast. Wonderful…

By the time he headed down the stairs, it was around 7:35 a.m., which meant that the bus would be arriving in 15 min.

As he headed out the door, his mother’s voice stopped him, “Wait, Kyle. Don’t forget to take your brother with you.”

As usual, Kyle protested. “Aww, but mom, Ike’s always so clingy when we have to leave.”

“Now Kyle…you know your brother looks up to you. He’s just in that stage where kids don’t see the proper benefits of a good education. It’s up to you to show how much fun school can be.”

“But—“

“No buts, mister!”

“Fine…” Kyle relented, walking over to the couch where his brother was sitting and watching TV.

“Come on, Ike, we have to go to school now,” Kyle said, struggling to pull a kicking and screaming Ike off the couch.

“Noooooo!” Ike cried, desperately clinging onto one of the armrests.

“Quit being so stubborn, Ike. Let go! We don’t have time for this.” Kyle exclaimed, tugging harder, causing the smaller boy’s grip to falter and the two of them to fall backwards. Kyle quickly got up and dragged Ike out the door from the boy’s feet.

Once out the door, Kyle let go of Ike, leaving him on the doorstop. But as he began to walk away, the smaller boy grabbed his leg, making it harder for Kyle to progress any further. Ike definitely wasn’t making this easy for him.

“Let go, Ike! We’ve been through this already. I’m _not_ dragging you all the way to the bus stop again.”

(A few minutes later…)

Kyle let out a frustrated groan. “I can’t believe you made me drag you all the way to the bus stop.” He stated, annoyed. Why is it that Ike always got so clingy when they had to leave every morning for school? And why did he always have to cling to his leg like he was some taxi?

Upon arriving at the bus stop, Kyle saw his friends casually waiting for the bus.

“Alright, Ike. Time to kick the baby.” Kyle announced suddenly, shaking Ike off his leg.

“Don’t…kick…the…baby…” Ike protested, but it was too late. No sooner did the words leave Ike’s mouth did he suddenly find himself flying through the air.

Kyle ignored Ike’s complaints when Ike hit the ground nearby and walked up the bus stop to stand by Stan.

“Hey Stan, Kenny…fatass.” He greeted casually.

“Hey dude,” Stan answered with a grin.

“Mmph.” Kenny said, his voice muffled behind the hood of his orange parka.

Cartman didn’t respond.

Kyle blinked. That was strange. Cartman always had something to say. That is, unless he was secretly plotting something.

“What, no insults? No remarks about you being big boned to help delude yourself from the truth of being a Fatass?” He questioned, looking over to Cartman. Stan and Kenny turned to look at Cartman, questionably.

Cartman kept his eyes glued to the ground, choosing to remain silent.

“Nice try. I _know_ you can hear me, Fatass.”

Cartman didn’t answer.

Okay, now this was getting weird. What was wrong with him?

“Uh…Cartman?” Kyle tried, a little hesitantly.

No response.

Kyle laughed. “What’s the matter? All that fat finally clog your vocal chords?” He joked.

Cartman immediately sprang to life, fixing Kyle with a glare. “Fuck you, Kyle! Just leave me alone. I’m not in the mood to deal with your bull crap today.”

Now there’s the Cartman he knew. He should’ve known better. No matter what Cartman would always just be the same Cartman.

“My bull crap?!” Kyle exclaimed angrily. “I’m not the one who gets his kicks from ripping on people all the time for their religion!”

“Dude, just let it go,” Stan interjected. “He’s been this way since Kenny and I got here. He won’t explain to us what’s suddenly crawled up his ass.”

“Meah.” Kenny agreed.

“You know what? You guys are right. If Cartman wants to sit and sulk all day like a pussy, then screw him. It’ll be nice to finally get some peace and quiet around here.” Kyle said, not giving Cartman a second thought.

Instead, he thought about bringing up the topic that had been on his mind since early this morning.

“So Stan, about that Environmental project that Ms. Garrison is going to assign today, I was wondering if you wanted to—

“Dude! I totally forgot about the project! You think Wendy will want to work with me?!” Stan interrupted urgently.

Kyle was taken aback. “Wait, what? Wendy? No Stan, see, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I—“

But Stan wasn’t listening. “She’s got to say yes! She’s like, super smart when it comes to this type of stuff. What do you think, Ken?” He said, turning to the orange parka-hooded boy.

“Mhe’ll mucking motally may mes men my mask mer.” Kenny replied.

“Dude, that’s so not cool. You can’t ask my girlfriend to be your partner. It goes against the bro code.” Stan answered, shaking his head.

“Mot mith my mrades.” Kenny responded.

“Yeah, but my grades are just as bad and she’s my girlfriend so she’s sort of obligated to help me out.” Stan argued.

Kenny sighed. “Mot me mere…”

Kyle cut in. “Well, since Stan’s already got someone to work with, would you like to be my partner, Kenny?” he asked.

“Meah.” Kenny nodded.

“Awesome!” Kyle exclaimed. Now that Kenny was onboard, he wouldn’t have to work by himself or someone he didn’t like.

Just then, the bus arrived at the bus stop. Cartman was the first to get on. Kyle did find it a bit unsettling that Cartman never bothered to say a word when they were discussing partners.

 _‘Knowing Cartman, he’d probably just end up tricking Butters into doing all the work for him.’_ Kyle thought.

Still…he couldn’t help but feel a little worried about Cartman since he hadn’t seemed quite like himself. Then again, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing considering how much torment Cartman puts everyone through having to listen to his constant mocking.

On second thought, why did he care again?

When they got on the bus, Stan sat next to Wendy and Kenny sat next to Bebe, leaving Kyle to choose the seat next to Cartman. Kyle figured that so long as Cartman wasn’t talking today, there should be no reason why he had to worry about being subjected to a string of insults so it was okay to sit by Cartman. He only hoped that Cartman would continue this new change of attitude every day.

Kyle looked beside him to see Cartman staring out the window silently. He seemed to be deep in thought over something. It made Kyle nervous. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Cartman was plotting something. He didn’t know what, but he just knew that it couldn’t be good if Cartman was in the mix of things.

A curious part of Kyle wanted to know the reason for Cartman’s strange behavior, but the other more sensible part knew that the second he asked Cartman what was going on with him, Cartman would somehow manage to find a way to manipulate him into whatever scheme he was plotting and Kyle was not interested. He watched Cartman’s eyebrows knit together in anger.

Still…it couldn’t hurt to just know what plan Cartman had conjured up. After all, suppose it had to do with the murder of someone he knew? Or what if Cartman had found a way to make his life miserable forever? His conscience just couldn’t let himself ignore what might be the difference between life and death for an innocent civilian, especially if he could’ve done something to prevent some devastation from happening.

Cartman’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Finally got the hots for me, Kahl? I always knew you were a fag, but I never would’ve thought I’d catch you drooling over me in public. Can’t say I’m surprised though. I guess I just have that effect on people, what with this killer bod and all.” He boasted, without sparing a glance in Kyle’s direction.

Kyle blushed in embarrassment, wondering why he even considered asking Cartman what was wrong with him. There were a lot of things wrong with Cartman. It shouldn’t have been that surprising.

“Get real, Fatass. No one would ever want to come near that gross flab of yours for fear of being sucked into your gravitational pull.”

“Oh? If I’m so gross, then why were you just ogling me now like you couldn’t wait to get those Jewish hands all over my junk?”

“I wasn’t ogling you, dumbass! I was just staring out the window and your fatass just happened to be in the way!”

“Say what you will, Kahl. We both know you secretly want me all alone to yourself so you can take me under the moonlight until I scream your name.”

Kyle had a look of disgust on his face. Cartman would go there.

“First off, sick dude! I don’t think I’ll ever be able to erase that disturbing mental image from my head. Second, you _know_ I’m not gay, Cartman, so you can stop harping on it already. It’s pointless.”

“Whatever, Jew. We both know it’s pointless for you to deny those gay feelings for me any longer.” He responded casually.

Kyle stared helplessly at Cartman for a few moments. Then, he just shook his head.

“I just realized that it’s pointless trying to argue with a dumbass so I’m just going to ignore you now.” Kyle stated, turning away from Cartman.

There was silence between the two boys for a moment before Cartman responded.

“Normally I’d say, ‘suck my balls, Kahl’, but apparently, you’d really enjoy that.” He said, grinning.

“AUGH!” Kyle yelled in frustration, grabbing the chubby boy by his collar. “For the last time, Cartman! Get it through that fat fucking skull: I AM NOT GAY!” He said, violently shoving Cartman into the wall of the bus.

 _‘Cartman always does this. He always tries to push me to the point where I just want to kill him. Well, one day, he just might get his wish and I won’t feel a bit sorry for doing it either.’_ Kyle thought angrily, failing to notice the fact that all eyes were on the two boys now.

“HEY! Y’ALL BETTER NOT BE ROUGH HOUSING ON MY BUS! DON”T MAKE ME TURN THIS BUS AROUND!” the bus driver yelled back angrily.

The school bus swerved in and out of oncoming traffic causing all the children to scream and desperately cling onto the seats. The school bus barely missed hitting a fuel truck before the bus driver drove smoothly again.

The class gave a collective pained noise.

By now, all the kids were either laying in the aisle or thrown across to the other seats.

Laying awkwardly in the aisle, Kyle’s head was swimming. The near-death experience had caused Cartman’s head to knock into Kyle’s.

“Dude, you okay?” he heard Stan’s voice say from right beside him.

“I…I…think…so,” Kyle responded. “You?” He asked.

“I think I’m still in shock. Dude! That fucking bitch almost killed us!” Stan exclaimed.

“WHAT WAS THAT?!” The bus driver shouted.

Stan froze. “Um, I said, ‘we almost hit a truck and ditch’.” He answered.

“Oh.” The bus driver replied, turning back to what she was supposed to be doing.

“Phew…” Stan said, giving a relieved sigh.

“At least we made it.” Kyle said.

“Kenny? You okay?” Stan asked.

The blonde kid didn’t answer. Both Kyle and Stan looked over to find the bottom half of Kenny’s body out the window and the top half…missing.

“Oh no! She killed Kenny!” Stan yelled.

“You bastard!” Kyle shouted, shaking an angry fist at the driver.

“I’M A WHAT?” The bus driver replied suddenly.

Stan rushed to his friend’s defense. “Um, he said, ‘you backed her’. As in, you backed _her_ , meaning the bus, when—“Stan shook his head. “Aw, screw it, he said, ‘you bastard!’ You fucking bitch!” He said.

“Okay then.” The bus driver nodded, turning around again.

Kyle gaped. “Dude…that’s all it took?”

“We should have done that all along.” Stan agreed.

Kyle gasped suddenly.

Stan blinked. “What is it?”

“Dude…if Kenny’s dead, then that means I’ll have to find another partner now.” Kyle explained, worriedly.

There was silence for a moment as Stan thought that statement over. He shook his head.

“That is so messed up, dude. Kenny’s dead and _that’s_ what you think about? I think you’ve been hanging out too long with Cartman.” Stan replied.

Kyle looked a mix between horrified and ashamed. “You’re right…I…I don’t know what came over me.” He said solemnly.

“Da fuck, Kahl?! Why’d you have to go and piss off the bus lady? You know she’s always PMSing.” Cartman’s voice said from the seat beside Stan’s head.

“Oh, you didn’t die yet?” Kyle questioned uncaringly.

“That’s too bad, Kahl. You can’t get rid of me that easily.” Cartman smirked.

“Cartman, why don’t you just go back to the pussy-acting way you were before we came on the bus?” Stan asked, mimicking Kyle’s lack of emotion.

“Ok, first of all, I’m not a pussy. Nor have I ever acted like one. And two, don’t get angry at me just because your boyfriend tried to come onto me.” Cartman answered.

“I did not try to come onto you, fatass. I just wanted to know what you were plotting this morning so you don’t try to kill any more people.” Kyle responded.

“Hmm, what I was plotting…what I was plotting…” Cartman considered for a moment. “Oh, you know, just the same thing I’m plotting every day, Kahl—to take over the world.” He replied casually.

Kyle rolled his eyes. “Cartman, you stole that line from the show, “Binky and the Pain”, that we all watched last night.”

“How do you know? Maybe the creators of the show just heard me use that awesome line one day and decided to use it on their show?” Cartman asked.

“Because number one: you’ve never used that line since today and number two: that show came out way before you and I were even born, dumbass.” Kyle answered.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Kahl. I wasn’t aware that you were with me all 24 hours of the day. Then again, some people just can’t get enough of me.” Cartman commented.

“You _know_ what I meant, fatboy.” Kyle said.

“No, I _know_ what you _said_ , Kahl. And coincidences happen every day. I could’ve said the same word that a show just happened to use and never heard it before.” Cartman retorted.

“Guys, guys…can’t we just agree to disagree?” Stan quickly intervened before things got too out of hand between his friends. “Kyle, you know Cartman’s never going to stop being an asshole so it’s useless to keep arguing with him. Cartman just never knows when to quit.”

“AY!” Cartman yelled.

Stan turned to Cartman. “And Cartman, just stop. I’m tired of listening to you two fight all the time.” He said.

“Who died and made you king?” Cartman asked. “Don’t act all high and mighty when your girlfriend’s been sleeping with every guy around! Oh wait, that’s right. She missed one.” Cartman said, laughing.

“You see? This is exactly what I have to deal with!” Kyle yelled.

“Alright, I’ve had it! Cartman, you don’t get to talk about my girlfriend that way. She’s my girlfriend, dude. Not cool. And at least my mom’s not on the cover of Crackwhore magazine. Stan said. He turned to his best friend. ” Kyle, if you want to stay here all day and argue with fatass, be my guest, but I’ve had enough for today. Later dudes.” Stan said, walking off.

Kyle gaped.

“Yeesh, what’s up his vagina?” Cartman asked, looking to the boy walking off.

“You know what? He’s right. I don’t know why I waste so much time dealing with you.” Kyle said, walking off to find a new seat.

“Oh, that’s fine, Kyle! Make _me_ into the bad guy!” Cartman yelled.

He sighed. “I’m always the bad guy…” he said quietly enough so no one could hear.

When the bus arrived at school, all the kids got off the bus and headed into the school building.

Kyle walked to his locker with Stan.

“Can you believe that fatass? He always tries to find a way of getting under other people’s skin! He just never knows when to quit. I swear, one of these days he’s really going to get what’s coming to him,” Kyle exclaimed, still brooding over Cartman’s earlier remarks.

“Dude, it’s _Cartman_. What do you expect? He _always_ acts that way.” Stan replied, grabbing the books in his locker.

Kyle sighed. “I know, but for some reason…after seeing him so upset this morning, I thought that maybe--just maybe--he’d finally start acting decent for a change. I don’t know. Maybe it was just wishful thinking,” he said.

Stan shut his locker, turning to face Kyle. “Kyle, you _know_ fatass isn’t going to change. Don’t fall into his trap. That’s exactly what Cartman wants you to think so that you’ll let your guard down and make it easier for him to manipulate you into one of his evil schemes.”

“Yeah…you’re probably right…” Kyle agreed, not willing to meet Stan’s eyes. He didn’t understand why he was feeling this way, but something by the way Cartman was acting earlier just didn’t feel right. Almost like Cartman was upset about something and didn’t want anyone to find out. Stan’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

“Look, dude…can we talk about something else? I don’t really want to think about fatass right now.” Stan said, changing the subject.

“Yeah, I know what you mean…every second we spend talking about Cartman gives me the creeps.” Kyle agreed. “So on another note, my mom woke Ike and me up before my alarm clock again?”

“Dude, again?!” Stan exclaimed in shock. “Your mom’s got issues. If my mom ever did that, I don’t think I’d have the energy to come to school every day and deal with all the crap these crazy teachers put us through.”

“How do you think _I_ feel about it?! My mom actually makes me come home early just so that I could spend the rest of the day studying and makes me promise that I’ll make straight A’s every morning before I leave the house. She says it’s to build up my confidence.” Kyle said.

“You’ve got it rough, dude. I’m glad she’s not my mother,” Stan responded, thankful that he wasn’t born in Kyle’s shoes.

“Gee thanks for the support…” Kyle stated, sarcastically.

“Aw, cheer up dude. At least you don’t have to listen to your parents argue about stupid things all the time such as my dad’s sudden mid-life crises and how my mom just doesn’t understand him and the younger generation anymore,” Stan answered.

Kyle laughed. “Yeah, I guess you got me there,” he said.

“Our parents are so dumb sometimes. They always act like they know what they’re doing, but really, they just make things worse whenever they get involved. And they’re always so hypocritical, telling us we can’t do this or we can’t do that, but whenever they do it, it magically becomes okay.” Stan ranted.

“All very true, Stan. But dude, at least they care,” Kyle defended.

Stan thought for a moment. Then, he nodded. “Yeah…I guess that’s true,” he agreed.

They both walked into the classroom where Ms. Garrison would be teaching and took their seats right next to each other.

“Gaywads…” Cartman muttered under his breath, eying the two friends that sat in the desks in front of them.

Butters sat down behind him. “Oh, hey there, Eric. How’s it going?” he greeted, cheerfully.

“Go away Butters…” Cartman said, not in the mood to deal with Butter’s annoying enthusiasm.

“Go away? B-but we’re in class and Ms. Garrison says we’re not allowed to change our assigned seats,” Butters replied, in confusion.

“Then move your seat somewhere where I don’t have to listen to your attempt at making conversation with me,” Cartman answered.

“Gee whiz, Eric. All I did was ask about your day, but if you’re going to be a big meanie about it—why I outta—why I outta just leave you alone.” Butters said.

“Yes! Leave me _alone_!” Cartman exclaimed.

“O-okay, Eric. Just remember I’m right behind you if you need to talk. You don’t seem to be having a good day,” Butters noted.

“Oh really? I hadn’t noticed. Now leave me alone,” Cartman replied, shutting his eyes to calm himself.

The classroom was filled with the voices of students conversing with one another, and the students continued to make noise even when Ms. Garrison stepped into the room and put down her things.

“Alright, settle down you little bastards,” Ms. Garrison said. The class quieted down.

“Okay class, today we’re going to talk about the upcoming project that is due next week Tuesday on the environmental impact of global warming. Now, I know I said last time that I would let you students choose your own partners, but after considering the last screw up where someone decided to make me look bad by dressing up as Adolf Hitler during our unit on Anne Frank in front of the superintendent—who happens to be Mrs. Broflovski and Jewish, let me remind you—I have decided not to have you students choose your own partners this time around.”

The class groaned.

“Now, I’m not saying any names as to which student was dumb enough to do this…Eric Cartman!” Ms. Garrison emphasized, leveling Cartman with a glare.

“Ay! How was I supposed to know Kyle’s mother would be such a bitch about it?!” Cartman argued.

“DON”T CALL MY MOM A BITCH, FATASS!” Kyle yelled.

“Dude, she kind of is…” Stan cut in.

“What? No, she isn’t!” Kyle defended.

“YEAH, SHE IS!” The class collectively replied.

Ms. Garrison continued with the lecture. “Alright, now that we’ve established how much of a bitch Kyle’s mother is, I want you children to know that I have decided to assign your partners instead.”

The class groaned.

Ms. Garrison ignored the response from the class and pulled out a roster containing a list of students. “Stan, you will be working with Wendy.”

“Aw sweet dude!” Stan exclaimed. “Now I’ll get an ‘A’ for sure!”

Wendy gave a small smile in his direction.

“Craig, you’ll be paired up with Clyde.”

The two looked at each other and nodded. Then, Craig flip the teacher off.

“Craig! Did you just flip me off?!”

“No.” He flipped him off again.

“That’s it! One week on detention!”

“Aw…do we have to go through this every day?” Clyde complained.

“Another outburst from you, Clyde, and you’ll be joining him,” Ms. Garrison answered. Then, he thought for a moment. “Actually, that’s a good idea. Maybe a week’s worth of time in detention will encourage the two of you to spend time working on that project instead of always farting around like dimwits. Very well, I’ve made up my mind. One week for you, Clyde.”

“Lame…” Clyde replied solemnly.

Ms. Garrison continued out assigning partners.

“Tweek, you’ll work with Token.”

“Right on!” Token said.

“Ack! This is great!” Tweek agreed.

“Jimmy, you’ll be partnered up with Timmy.”

“S-s-sweet.” Jimmy said.

“Timmy!” Timmy shouted in agreement.

“Bebe, you’ll work with Heidi. And ladies, maybe try not to turn the project into some ‘ _What Not to Wear_ ’ segment this time, hmm?”

“Ok…” the two girls said in unison.

“Annie, you work with Millie. Lola, you’ll be working with Rebecca. And Esther, you work with Sally.” Ms. Garrison read down the list.

“Butters, you work with Pip.”

“O-ok then,” Butters said.

“Right-o! We will have a quite splendid time working together.” Pip said, smiling at Butters.

“That’s nice…moving on…Kyle, you’ll work with—“Ms. Garrison stopped suddenly.

“Hmm…that’s odd, Kenny’s not here,” He said in confusion.

“Um, Ms. Garrison? Kenny died,” Kyle answered.

“Really? That puts a damper on things,” Ms. Garrison waved it off. “Well, originally, I was going to have you, Kyle, paired up with Kenny, but since Kenny’s dead, I guess I’ll just have you paired off with Eric.”

“What?! No! Anything but fatass!” Kyle exclaimed, dreading the thought of working beside his longtime enemy. “Um, Ms. Garrison, I’d really rather work alone.” He tried.

“No one likes a person who’s not a team player, Kyle,” Ms. Garrison replied uncaringly.

“Yeah, Kahl. Stop being such a Jew.” Cartman agreed.

“Argh!” Kyle groaned in frustration. “But Ms. Garrison, Cartman always makes me do all the work!”

“Well, there you go, Kyle. You got what you wanted. It’ll be just like you’re working on your own. Only now, you’ll be helping someone else out by pulling up Cartman’s grades,” Ms. Garrison quipped easily.

“Don’t worry, Ms. Garrison. Kahl and I will work long and hard on this assignment,” Cartman said, sweetly. “Won’t we, Kahl?”

“Grr…” Kyle responded angrily. _‘It isn’t fair! What did I do to deserve this?’_ Kyle thought, visibly upset.

“Now, as for the project, all of you are to deliver a 10-min. presentation in front of the entire class next week to show what you have learned in the past week. You may use examples from class and in the textbooks or if you choose to include outside resources, make sure to always cite your sources. No plagiarizing, which includes copying down all the information from Wikipedia…Eric,” Ms. Garrison said the last part firmly.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever…” Cartman waved it off.

“I’m _serious_ , Eric. If I catch you or anyone plagiarizing stuff off the Internet, it’ll result in an automatic failure. And not only that, it’ll reaffirm that most of you are just a bunch of lazy bastards…” Ms. Garrison said.

While Ms. Garrison was talking, Wendy whispered to Stan. “Hey Stan, you’re good at making videos, right?” she asked.

Stan looked over to her with a puzzled look. “Yeah, why?” he asked.

Wendy didn’t respond. Instead, she raised her hand.

“Yes, Wendy?” Ms. Garrison asked.

“Ms. Garrison, are we allowed to create a video for our project?” She asked.

“Well, yes, I suppose so, as long as the video stays under the time limit. What did you have in mind?”

“Well, it’s just that I thought it might be creative to do a video about pollution in Southpark to make the assignment a little more relevant to the students,” She explained.

“What a great idea, Ms. Testaburger. If only you’re fellow classmates shared your same level of ingenuity and intellect, then maybe Southpark Elementary wouldn’t be labelled as a hick school,” Ms. Garrison responded.

Wendy smiled. “Thank you, Ms. Garrison.

“Kiss up…” Cartman muttered, rolling his eyes.

“Like you could do any better, fatass.” Kyle countered.

“Watch me. Our project is going to be so awesome, it’ll put Southpark on the map,” Cartman replied, grinning.

“Don’t you mean, ‘ _my project_?’ It’s not like you’ll be doing anything,” Kyle said.

“You know, there’s an “I” in ‘team’ now, Kahl. It’s labelled in the a-hole,” Cartman stated bluntly. “I guess we know why…”

“Whatever, Cartman. Just be prepared to work on the project this afternoon. Your house, 4p.m. sharp.” Kyle answered, turning back to Ms. Garrison.

Meanwhile, Stan whispered back to Wendy. “Now I get why you asked me if I was good at making videos. You wanted us to make one for the project.”

Wendy nodded. “That, and you’re the only one I know that owns a camcorder,” She answered.

“Oh yeah, that’s true,” Stan agreed, slightly put off.

Just then, the bell rang.

“Alright, you little bastards, get the hell out of my classroom,” Ms. Garrison noted.

The children eagerly left the classroom.

______________________________________________________________

By the time school Kyle arrived home from school, it was already a little after 3p.m.

“Mom, I’m home!” Kyle called out, making his way upstairs.

His mother met him at the stairs. “Oh, very good, Kyle. Nice to see my little bubbe back home safely.” She said, giving him a hug. “Everything go well at school?”

“Yeah, mom…everything went terrific. I got a few papers back and I made all A’s,” Kyle answered, knowing that was exactly what his mother was waiting to hear.

She nodded. “I’d expect nothing less from my bubbula. We only raise bright kids in this household,” She responded, giving him a kiss.

“Yeah, mom…” Kyle agreed. Then he remembered the project. “Oh, and before I forget, I’m heading over to Cartman’s later so that we can start on a project that’s due next week.”

His mother looked pleased. “Very good, Kyle. It’s great to hear that you’re taking an interest in your studies. Just make sure you don’t let that other boy bring you down. You must stay very focused, Kyle, and as I have recently heard, that boy, Eric Cartman isn’t doing so well.”

“Yes, I know mom. Ms. Garrison said that she wanted me to work with him so that I’d help him pull up his grades,” Kyle answered.

“Oh? Is that so?” His mother asked, surprised. “Wonderful! Wonderful! This will be an excellent thing to list on your resume! This is the type of community service that Harvard looks forward!” She exclaimed happily. “Well, let me not bother you anymore than I have. I know you probably have to get ready soon to leave for your little friend’s house. What time are you leaving again?”

“4p.m.,” Kyle replied.

“Ah, make sure to be back by 9p.m., Kyle,” His mother said, heading down the stairs.

“Sure, mom.” Kyle said. _‘That won’t be hard…’_ He thought. Kyle resumed his climb up the stairs, and went down the hallway to his room.

He immediately dropped his things, walked over to his bed, and collapsed on it. It had been a long day and he still couldn’t believe that it was still going. Kyle looked over at his alarm clock. 3:15 p.m.

At around 3:45p.m, he’d figured that he’d head over to Cartman’s. He really wasn’t looking forward to working with fatboy, but he figured that Cartman would be spending most of the time watching television in the living room and eating cheesypoofs so Kyle could just head upstairs and work on the project by himself in Cartman’s room.

He knew it wasn’t fair that he’d be doing all of the work while Cartman got to relax, only making his fatass ever fatter, but it wasn’t like he was expecting any different when it came to working with Cartman. Heck, it was one of the reasons why no one ever volunteered to be his partner. That is—except Butters, who went along with almost anything. He figured the least amount of interaction he had with Cartman, the better.

And besides, nothing was stopping him from leaving if things got too out of hand. He could just tell his mom that they finished earlier than expected.

Kyle felt his eyelids start to get droopy. He knew he had some time to go before 3:45p.m so he set his alarm to go off at 3:30p.m. and allowed himself to drift into dreamland.

…

….

…

Kyle suddenly opened his eyes. It was darker than usual for 3:30 p.m. How long had he been asleep? He checked his alarm clock. 6:00p.m.

Kyle shot up in his bed. He couldn’t believe it. He had overslept! Cartman was going to be so pissed. Quickly, he grabbed all his things and headed down the stairs, where he encountered his mom.

“Kyle? I thought you had already left. Do you know what time it is?” His mother questioned.

“Yeah, I know, 6p.m. I overslept,” Kyle said hurriedly.

“Are you sure you still want to head over to your friend’s house? It’s getting close to dinnertime,” His mother said, a bit concerned.

“It’ll be okay, mom. I’ll eat later. Bye!” He said, heading past her and out the door.

“Ok, bubbe. Be careful!” His mother shouted.

_____________________________________________________________

By the time he arrived at Cartman’s, it was dark out. He walked up to the doorstep and rang the doorbell.

“MEHM! GET THE DOOR!” He recognized Cartman’s voice yelling.

“MEHM!”

“I SAID, MEHM!”

“Goshdamnit,” He heard Cartman complain and then he heard footsteps coming to the door.

He opened the door, revealing Cartman already in his pajamas.

“Oh, it’s you, Jew. It’s about time you got here. Geez, what took you so long?” He said, walking away from the door as a silent invitation to come inside.

“I overslept…” Kyle said sheepishly, walking in the house and shutting the door.

All the lights were off in the house. The only light that shown was through the TV, which was turned to Terrance &Phillip. Cartman sat on the couch facing the TV holding a bowl of cheesy puffs in his lap.

Suddenly, Kyle felt out of place. “Um, if I came at a bad time, I can always—“

“Cut the bull crap, Kahl. We both know why you’re here,” Cartman interjected.

“Well, yeah…I came to your house so that we could work on the project that was assigned to us,” Kyle replied in confusion.

“No, Kahl. Tell me the _real_ reason you came here,” Cartman reiterated, his dark brown eyes staring down Kyle’s. He muted the television.

“T-the real reason?” Kyle asked, caught off guard. “That is the real reason why I came here!”

“Sure, Kahl. That’s what you _want_ me to think,” Cartman answered, not buying it.

“Alright, what the hell are you talking about this time, Cartman?” He questioned.

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know, Kahl. You came to my house so you could fuck me.”

Kyle gaped. “What?” Did he just hear him right?

“That’s right, Kahl. You came here pretending like you were going to work with me on a project so that you could gain my trust so that you could go into my room, pretend like you were working on the computer, when really you wanted to go through my things, look for any embarrassing stuff that you could exploit as blackmail and fuck me!” Cartman explained.

“I…I…what? Just…what?” Kyle said, unsure of how to follow Cartman’s weird logic.

“Oh, cat got your tongue, Kahl? Thought I wouldn’t be clever enough to see through your sneaky schemes, huh Jew?”

Kyle shook his head. “Cartman, you are such an idiot…” Kyle responded. He wondered if he should just leave now.

“Oh, that’s rich, Kahl. _I’m_ the idiot. You know, you and my mom always find some way to fuck me. It’s like you both take turns or something, the way you two are always fucking me harder and harder so that I’m always screwed. Well guess what, Kahl. I’m not going to let you fuck me this time. I’m not your bitch,” Cartman asserted.

“Ok, first of all. I have no idea what you’re talking about. And second, you really shouldn’t be saying that someone uh…’fucked you’. It could be taken the wrong way,” Kyle replied. This was exactly what he was trying to avoid. No matter what, it seemed he always got sucked up into Cartman’s strange drama. He moved to sit down on the sofa. Might as well get comfortable. This could take a while.

“But you did! You did fuck me. You’ve fucked me so bad, Kahl that I’ve had to bend over backwards just so that you fuck me time and time again. Nothing is ever good enough for you,” Cartman answered.

“No, see, when you that kind of terminology…aw, screw it. Explaining something to you is like trying to teach the Pythagorean Theorem to a dog. And even then, I bet the dog would learn it faster than someone explaining something to you.”

“No, go on, Kahl. Insult me in my home. And when you’re done, don’t forget to insult me on the way out!”

“FINE!” Kyle yelled, standing up and storming over to the door. “Idiot,” he mumbled before gripping the doorknob. He turned around to dish out a few departing words, when he saw it.

Tears.

Running down Cartman’s face. He couldn’t believe it. Cartman was crying.

Kyle was so shocked that he just stood there, wide-eyed.

“Well?” Cartman asked, quickly wiping his face with the end of his sleeve, which made it all the more obviously he was crying. “What are you waiting for, Kyle? Get the fuck out!” He shouted.

“Cartman? Are you…crying?” Kyle asked.

“No…damn it Kyle! I’m not a pussy…” He said, sniffling.

“Yes, you are…there’s tears.” Kyle argued.

“So? There’s…there’s just something in my eye! Just leave me alone,” The heavier boy said.

“What’s wrong?” Kyle asked.

“I said, leave me _alone_ , Kyle!” Cartman said, raising his voice.

Kyle looked to the door. He could easily leave right now. He didn’t have to stay. After all, Cartman had already given him his ticket out of there. All he had to do was walk out that door and never speak of it. He could just as easily do the project on his own. No one would ever tell the difference anyway.

But somehow…it just didn’t seem right. Even if it was Cartman. His good morals were simply against it.

“No!” Kyle answered. “Tell me what’s wrong. You’ve been acting strange all day.”

“Damn it Kyle! Nothing is wrong! And I’m not crying!” Cartman yelled angrily. “Now go away or I’ll make you!” He threatened.

“Cartman, it’s okay to cry from time to time…it doesn’t make you any less than you already are,” Kyle said gently, walking back over to the couch. “Look, I’m not going to tell anyone about this if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Cartman glared up at him with a thoughtful expression.

“Alright, fine. If you really want to know what I’m so upset about, it’s because Mr. Kitty died yesterday…” he sniffled. “He meant everything to me…” Cartman said, letting the tears run down his face.

Kyle felt really bad. He knew how much Cartman loved that cat.

“Cartman…I…I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry, “He said, sympathetically. Kyle gave Cartman a hug, allowing the larger boy to break down into tears.

Suddenly, Cartman’s crying started sounding weird to Kyle. Almost like he was…

“Haha…”

“Haha…”

“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!” Cartman laughed, falling on his back. “DUDE! YOU SHOULD’VE SEEN THE LOOK ON YOUR FACE! THAT WAS…THAT WAS…GOLD, KAHL! AHAHAHA! YOU TOTALLY FELL FOR IT! THANK YOU FOR MAKING MY DAY A LITTLE MORE AWESOME! AHAHAHAHA!”

“That wasn’t funny, fatass!” Kyle exclaimed.

“Yes…yes, it was Kahl haha...” Cartman answered, trying to control his laughter.

“I hate you so fucking much right now, you know that?” Kyle said.

“Hahaha…” Cartman said, wiping the tears from his laughter. “You say that as if I’m suddenly going to care, Kahl!”

“That’s it! I am so out of here!” Kyle said, getting up to walk to the door, but was stopped by Cartman grabbing hold of the back of his shirt.

“Kyle wait.”

“Let go of me, fatass.” Kyle said angrily, not turning around.

“Ok…ok…you win. I’ll tell you why I’m really upset.” Cartman said, letting go of Kyle’s shirt. Kyle just stood there, back turned and facing the door.

Cartman sighed, closing his eyes, and then opening them again.

“What day was yesterday, Kahl?”

Kyle blinked. That hadn’t been the question he had been expecting. “Huh? What does that have to do with—”

“Just answer the question, Kahl,” Cartman replied.

“Sunday, why?” He asked.

“No, Kahl. Specifically, what day was it? As in, did anything special happen?” He asked.

“It was…it was Father’s day…” Kyle answered, realizing where Cartman was going with this. He shook his head. “Oh no, Cartman! You are NOT making me fall for that again. You made it perfectly clear the last time Scott Tenorman brought it up that you were perfectly fine with knowing that you killed your own father.”

Cartman’s face held no reaction. “Was I, Kahl? Or was that exactly what I wanted you to think?”

Kyle considered Cartman’s question for a moment. “Yes…yes, you were fine with it. You said the only reason you were upset was because your father was a ginger.”

Cartman scratched his chin, deep in thought. “Yes…I do believe mentioning my deep hatred of gingers…but take it for what it’s worth, Kahl. Appearances aren’t always what they seem. Here, allow me to elaborate. In the meantime, take a seat, Kahl. It’s a long story.”

Kyle walked over and sat on the couch beside Cartman.

“Mom and I usually spend father’s day together. By spending time together, I mean, mom usually takes me to super cool places such as Cheesy Chuck’s to eat all the free pizza I want, play games, and buys me sweet presents. We have the time in the world. That is…until one day…yesterday…”

…

…

…

Cartman wakes up in his bed and looks at the calendar. “Hooray! Today’s Father’s day!” he exclaims. He looks around in his bed for something.

“Hey, that’s funny. My breakfast isn’t here yet…” Cartman ponders.

“MEHM!”

“MEHM!”

No answer.

“Aw, goshdamnit.” Cartman grumbles, getting out of bed.

He heads down the stairs. “Mehm! Mehm, what the fuck?!” He calls out, but still no answer.

“Where the fuck is she?!” Cartman asks no one in particular.

He heads into the kitchen. “Looks like I’ll have to make my own damn breakfast around here.”

…

“Wait a minute, wait a minute.” Kyle interjected. “Your mom…makes you breakfast in bed on Father’s day?”

Cartman lets out an irritated sigh at being interrupted. “Yes, Kahl. It’s a family tradition,” he said.

“Dude…” Kyle said.

“Yes, Kahl. We all know my life’s very sweet now can I get on with the story?” Cartman asked in irritation.

“Whatever…” Kyle replied.

“So like I was saying…”

…

…

Cartman walks up to the fridge and sees a note. “Hello? What’s this?” He regards thoughtfully as he looks at the letter.

‘Eric honey,

Mommy is leaving to go on a date with the TV repairman. Be back by noon. Should be a quickie.

Love,

Mom XOXO’

“HAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHA!” Kyle laughed, clutching his sides.

“Damn it, Kahl! What is it now?” Cartman asked in irritation.

“Your…haha…your mom…she…really lives up to her name…ahhahaha! Even the repairman?! A quickie! AHAHAHA!” Kyle said, in between giggles.

“Quit it, Kahl. It’s not funny…”

“Yes, it is!” Kyle continued laughing.

“You see! This is exactly what I mean! Here you go, fucking me over again, Kahl!”

“Not before your mom!” Kyle exclaimed, laughing.

Cartman growled in annoyance, continuing with the story.

…

…

…

“Damn it, mehm!” Cartman yelled. “Now what the hell am I supposed to do?”

He considered for a minute. Finally, an idea came to him. “Oh, I know! I’ll watch Terrance & Phillip and wait for mehm to return.”

Cartman grabs a bag of cheesy poofs and sits on the couch facing the TV. He turns on the channel and sees…

…

…

..

“And do you know what I saw once I flipped on Terrance & Phillip, Kahl?”

Kyle had known the answer to this question as he had been watching Terrance & Phillip at his house as well.

“It was _Terrance & Phillip’s_ Father’s Day Special.” Kyle answered.

Cartman nodded. “That’s right, Kahl. An all-day marathon showing nothing but Terrance & Phillip farting along with their fathers,” He said, shaking his head.

“Watching my two favorite characters spend so much time together, I couldn’t help but feel like something was missing from my life. I…had to change the channel…”

“Dude…” Kyle said. Changing the channel during a series special was pretty bed for Terrance & Phillip fans.

Cartman continued. “But each show I turned to had commercial after commercial showing families spending time with one another, all happy. Sons playing catch with their fathers or learning how to be a man. Things like that. And somehow, I knew that deep down, I would never be able to know my father. To be able to forge the types of bonds that only a father and a son can only have. So, yes, Kahl. I was upset that my father was a ginger, but sometimes, I wonder what it would have been like to have one for a father. And you want to know the worst part, Kahl?”

Kyle looked over sympathetically at his friend.

“I only have myself to blame. And that really pisses me off because no matter what, I can never change that,” Cartman said, tears now in his eyes.

“Cartman…y-you didn’t know it was your father…it’s not your fault,” Kyle said.

“Kahl, you and I both know that just because I didn’t know that it was my father at the time, doesn’t change the fact that I killed him,” Cartman stated.

Kyle knew that to be true. However, he couldn’t help feel sorry for Cartman in spite of the circumstances.

“Well, what happened afterwards? Did your mom come home?”

“Kyle, I waited there on the couch for my mom well after 12. I had even fallen asleep and woke up at 3p.m. Still no sign of mom. And then I just…snapped. I threw the remote at the TV and then flipped it over. I figured, screw it. She’s dating the repairman, right? She can send him over anytime she wants. After she’s done fucking me, that is.”

“Then what happened?” Kyle asked.

“I got bored. So I walked around a while. And what did I see? Nothing but Father’s day cards and fathers playing with their kids in the park. I couldn’t hang out with you guys, oh no, you guys were busy spending time with your own fathers. I walked towards and alley and that’s when I saw it: My mom bumping uglies with some dude who wasn’t even the repairman. Oh, and she was also giving a blowjob to some Mexican dude, might I add.”

“Whoa…”

“Needless to say, I was shocked. It’s not every day that you see your own mother making crazy love to random dudes and a few fellows I know from across the street.”

“Dude, sick! You stayed and watched?” Kyle questioned in disgust.

“Only to take a few pictures for blackmail purposes in the future. You can never let an opportunity such as this pass,” Cartman responded.

Kyle gagged. He would do something like that. Actually, so would Kenny…so he shouldn’t be that surprised.

Kyle decided to change the subject. “So, does your mother know?” he asked.

“No, I haven’t told her. And why should I? It’s not like she’s been totally honest with me,” He answered. “I went home directly after that, ate some cheesy poofs and waited until about 9 p.m., and then went to bed. I don’t think she came home that night.”

“Did you see her this morning?”

“No, but I saw an apology letter on the fridge this morning saying that she was sorry she couldn’t make it, business was tight, and her day was tiring.”

 _‘Oh, I bet,’_ Kyle thought.

“The letter also said that she would be out on another date today, which as you can see, she has not returned from,” Cartman noted.

“Oh…” Kyle asked.

“Have you eaten dinner?” Kyle asked, suddenly concerned for his friend’s wellbeing.

“Kyle, do you not see the bag of cheesypoofs?” Cartman asked, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“You can’t be serious. You can’t your life off of cheesypoofs, dumbass. They lack nutrition.”

“Kenny’s family survives off of pop tarts,” Cartman argued.

“You are such an ignorant bastard, Cartman.” Kyle said.

No sooner had the words left his mouth did Kyle realize what a mistake he’d made. He covered his mouth in horror.

“I-I..I didn’t mean—“ Kyle tried.

“Save it, Kahl. I _know_ what you meant,” Cartman said, looking down. He sighed.

“Do you know the other reason why I was so upset, Kahl? It’s because you and everyone at school always treat me like I’m some kind of bad guy. It’s always, ‘Oh, Cartman’s so quiet lately, I bet he’s conjuring up some kind of scheme’, or ‘I don’t want to work with or be friends with Cartman because everyone says he’s mean.’ No one ever gives me the time of day.”

“But you are a bad guy,” Kyle said, as if he couldn’t believe that Cartman didn’t realize it himself by now. “You always insult everyone and do horrible things that make people not want to be your friend.”

“So, just because I’ve done a few questionable things in the past suddenly means that I can’t change?” Cartman asked, getting angry.

“You can, but you won’t,” Kyle stated.

“Duh! Because everyone keeps pissing me off!” He argued.

“Cartman, good kids don’t try to make other kids commit suicide to make people forget about something—“

“AY! I was hired by the teachers to do that!” Cartman defended.

“—and spike all the teachers’ foods with a ton of laxatives—”

“They threw me under a freakin’ bus!”

“Good kids don’t use stem cells to build a restaurant instead of saving their best friend’s life—“

“He came back!”

“Good kids don’t try to lead a cult of ginger kids against all the kids of Southpark!”

“It was for a good cause!”

“Good kids don’t try to ethnic cleanse the Jewish religion!

“They had it coming!”

“Good kids don’t trap other kids in bomb shelters so they could steal their spot to go to a restaurant!”

“Casa Bonita’s, Kyle!”

“Good friends don’t put another student’s dick in their mouth while the student is sleeping!”

“Ok, maybe that was a mistake…”

“Good kids don’t try to fake that they’re mentally handicapped for a prize—“

“I lost anyways…”

“Good kids don’t fake that they have Tourette’s so they could say anything they want—“

“Because they never thought of it. And I’ll never do that again.”

“And good kids don’t grind a kid’s parents’ up into chili and make him eat it.

“That asshole deserved it.”

“Let’s face it, Cartman, you don’t exactly have the cleanest records of us…”

“What about forgiveness, Kahl? I gave everyone a fruit basket…”

“You dumbass! A fruit basket isn’t going to change anything!” Kyle argued. “And you didn’t even mean it anyways because you still continued to do horrible things afterwards!”

“As I said, Kyle, people keep pissing me off.”

Kyle groaned. “Cartman, how do you expect anyone to feel sorry for you when you always act like such an asshole?”

“Just because I have the balls to say what everyone else is thinking does not make me an asshole, Kahl. And maybe if you’d be more of a friend to me, I wouldn’t be in these situations.”

“Cartman, if I wasn’t your friend, do you seriously think I would be spending this much time trying to cheer you up?” Kyle asked.

“This is what you call cheering up? I didn’t ask for a lecture, Kyle. I’m not another one of your challenging projects that you can try to fix and then brag about it later. I have feelings, alright?” Cartman said.

“Did you ever stop to think that the reason why I act the way I do isn’t totally my fault? Huh, Kahl? Did you ever stop to wonder if it’s because I come from such a shitty upbringing?” Cartman questioned. “I mean, let’s face facts here. My mom’s a dirty slut, my dad’s a deadbeat father and a ginger—two double whammies—and my brother is a sociopath who went as far as to sell me his pubes and seeks to make my life miserable. I haven’t exactly had the coziest of lives. I mean, my mom whores herself for money for God’s sake, and my dad didn’t have enough balls to provide any child support so that his own son would live a good life—not almost poor like Kenny. No, he basically saw my mom and me as a _mistake_. Do you hear? A _mistake_.”

Kyle didn’t answer. He kept his eyes to the floor.

“My mom’s so easy to manipulate because she’s sweet. She practically enables me by buying me all this awesome stuff, which is sweet by the way, so not complaining, but I get whatever I want. Anytime I say. Not much discipline involved for the things I get away with. No risk. So yes, maybe I am responsible for my actions, but not totally, I can assure you. I’ve never really had a disciplinary figure in my life. And although I’m super cool and everything, I used to be alone because I didn’t have any siblings to hang around like you all did so I found other ways. And maybe you never thought of this, Kahl, but maybe the reason why I eat so much food is because it helps me cope. Sure, maybe I am a bad person. Being bad is sweet. You get all the perks, but I’m also human and I do have feelings.”

Kyle let Cartman continue.

“But is that enough for you? Oh no, Kahl, you and everyone at Southpark elementary have to throw insults at me every day about my mom being a crackwhore and me being fat to remind me how imperfect my life is. But I’m not a pussy like Stan so I don’t go around moping all day. I’m only sitting here, telling you this Kahl, because…you were the first person to have ever asked. You’re the only who has ever really cared,” Cartman finished, looking up at Kyle.

Kyle said nothing for a while and then finally responded. “Thanks…thanks for sharing with me how you really feel, Cartman.” He said, looking up at Cartman. “I…I honestly don’t know what to say, but just…I’m sorry, I had no idea.”

“Oh no, Jew, you’re not going to start feeling sorry for me. I’m not a charity case. That’s Kenny’s job.”

“I still think you’re an idiot,” Kyle offered

“And I still think you’re a Jew.” Cartman said.

They both looked at each, locking eyes, Kyle’s green and Cartman’s brown. They both stayed there staring at each other for what seemed like an eternity. Then, finally, Cartman smiled. A true, genuine smile and then, Kyle smiled. Two friends sharing a special moment.

Until…fraaap!

A large fart emanated from Cartman’s rear.

Kyle’s face immediately had a look of disgust. “Dude!” he exclaimed, covering his nose with his shirt.

“Ahhh! Been holding that one in for the longest…” Cartman said, reclining on the couch.

“Gross! It’s stinking up the place! Open a window!” Kyle exclaimed, scrambling to find a nearest window. He quickly opened a window by the door, letting the cool air filter into the room. What a relief…

“If only your mom dated a guy with a lot more money, then maybe you guys could afford to have a fan in this place,” Kyle quipped.

Cartman froze. “Wait a minute…what did you just say?” He asked.

“Uh, just that your mom should date a guy with more money so you guys could—“

“That’s genius!” Cartman suddenly exclaimed.

“Huh?” Kyle asked in confusion.

“Don’t you see, Kahl? This will solve all my problems!”

“Cartman, I really don’t follow what you’re saying.”

“Two words, Kahl: Johnny Depp.”

“The guy who played as Captain Jack Sparrow in _Pirates of the Caribbean_?” Kyle asked, still perplexed. “What about him?”

“Just stay with me here, Kahl. What if I were to get my mom to date Johnny Depp?”

“Johnny Depp’s a famous actor, fatass. He wouldn’t be interested in your mom.”

“Why wouldn’t he? My mom’s still pretty smokin’ hot, if I do say so myself. And with a little enticement, I guarantee that he won’t turn her away.”

“How so?” Kyle asked.

“Alright, here’s the deal: My mom will claim to be one of the women that Johnny Depp had a one-night stand with during one of his drunken nights. She’ll shed a few tears here and there—you know, make her story believable—Johnny Depp will feel guilty, pay child support, let me hang out at his place over the weekends, and pretty soon, mom and I will be reeling in the dough because we have a freakin’ rich guy to support us. It’s gold, Kahl,” Cartman said, voice full of pride.

“Just when I thought you couldn’t get any dumber, fatass, you always seem to exceed my expectations.” Kyle said, shaking his head.

“What’s the big deal, Kahl? Other people do it all the time.” Cartman tried to persuade. He thought for a moment of an example. “Like, remember that Steve Wilkos show where all the black women make the men pay child support for a child that’s not even theirs? It’s genius.”

“Just because other people do it, doesn’t make it right, Cartman.”

“God, Kyle! Why can’t you ever take that stick out of your ass for once and just be happy for me? Why do you always try to stick your Jew nose into everything I do?”

“Because your happiness always leads to other people’s misery!”

“What am I doing wrong, Kahl? I’m just giving Johnny Depp what he always wanted—a beautiful family.”

“But you’re not his true family. He already has kids. It doesn’t matter if he’s divorced.”

Cartman gave a disheartened look. “Ouch, Kahl. Is that what you say to all the orphans too? I bet you must be real popular with Ike and all the kids down at the orphanage.”

“What?! No! I mean, what does this have to do with—no. Wait, don’t turn this around on me, fatass. We’re talking about you here and why you think it’s morally appealing to you essentially playing with Johnny Depp’s heart.”

“Look, Johnny Depp no longer has a family, right? And I don’t have a father. I’m just filling in the void here.”

“You’ll never do it. What about if Johnny Depp wants to do a DNA test to prove if he’s the father?”

“Dr. Mephisto, Kahl. He can genetically alter anything. Even alter the results of a DNA test.”

“I—“, Kyle shook his head. “I have nothing more to say to you other than you’re making a huge mistake.”

“You wouldn’t understand, Kahl. You, who already has a perfectly happy family.”

“That’s not it at all, fatass, and you _know_ it.” Kyle responded. He looked at the time. 9:15p.m. “Look, it’s already getting late. My mom is probably worried sick. I’ll…catch you tomorrow?” He asked.

“Fine, Kahl. We’ll work on this faggy project then. Or…”

“Or?” Kyle questioned.

“We get Mexicans to do it.” Cartman finished, grinning.

“What? No way! Remember what Ms. Garrison said? No plagiarizing.”

“Kahl, Ms. Garrison said ‘no plagiarizing’. She didn’t say anything about getting Mexicans to do our dirty work for us.”

“Yeah, but it just feels wrong…” Kyle said.

Cartman rolled his eyes. “Fine, Kahl. If you’re just going to wimp out on me, we’ll do the project your way.”

“I’m not being a wimp, Cartman. I just don’t think it’s right—"

“Save your speech for another time, Kahl. Like you said, it’s getting late and you have to go home before your bitchy mom comes this way and bitches our ears.”

“Don’t call my mom a bitch, fatass! And yeah…it’s just…I’m worried about you. If you want, you can come over to my place for the night,” Kyle offered. Under normal conditions, he would never say such a thing to Cartman, but this was different. He honestly did care about his friend.

It was silent between them for a moment.

“Dude…that had to be the gayest thing I’ve ever heard you say, Kahl,” Cartman remarked, grinning.

Kyle gave a nervous laugh. “Yeah, well…the offer still stands, “He said, walking over to the door.

Cartman considered the request for a moment. “Nah, I think I’ll stay here, Jew, just in case my mom decides to come. I’ll see you later, Kahl.”

“Yeah, later dude.” Kyle said, walking out the door.

Kyle thought over the events at Cartman’s house, and had to admit that for the first time in a long while, he enjoyed hanging out with Cartman. No matter how awkward it felt.

As soon as Kyle arrived home, his mother greeted him immediately.

“Where have you been, Kyle? Your father and I have been worried sick!” His mother said, giving him a bear hug.

“I’ve been at Cartman’s house. We had more than expected,” Kyle responded.

“Kyle?! Kyle?! Is that you?! Oh, thank goodness!” His father said, rushing up to Kyle. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“He’s been at Cartman’s house, honey. They were up late working on a science project.” His mother answered.

“Oh, is that all? Geez, Kyle! You have me thinking someone kidnapped you or something. Don’t forget to call us if you’re staying later than expected next time. You’ll give us a heart attack.”

“Understood, dad.” Kyle said. “Now, if it’s okay with you guys, I’m a bit tired and just want to go to bed.”

“But what about dinner? Have you eaten, Kyle?” His mother asked, worriedly.

“No, but that’s okay. I’m not very hungry,” Kyle said honestly, yawning.

“Nonsense, bubbe. No child of mine will go without food,” his mother said, already going to the kitchen to fetch him so food.

Meanwhile, Kyle headed up to his room and put down his things.

His mom came up the stairs and brought him some kosher food and a cold glass of lemonade.

“Good night, bubbe,” His mother said, kissing him goodnight. “Don’t stay up too late. You need lots of sleep so that you do well on all your assignments tomorrow.”

“Okay, mom,” Kyle replied, watching her leave the room.

Kyle had to say that all in all, it wasn’t a bad day.

Cartman’s mother arrived at home at around midnight. By then, Cartman was already in bed, but got up as soon as he heard the door open downstairs.

“MEHM?” Cartman called out, a bit hesitantly.

“Yes, sweetie?” She asked.

Cartman rushed downstairs and hugged his mother. “Mehm, I’ve missed you so much!” he exclaimed.

His mother was shocked at this display of affection, but little did she know, it was all a part of Eric Cartman’s tactic—a little tactic that he’d like to call buttering up.

His mother laughed. “Oh, what’s gotten into you, Eric?” she asked.

“You’re the greatest mom ever and I like, was scared you wouldn’t come home.” Cartman said, sweetly.

“Aww, sweetie, I’m so sorry. Would you like me to make you something, poopsikins?”

“Could you maybe make me some Salisbury steak?”

“Oh, honey, it’s so late. Are you sure you want that?”

“Well, it’s just I’ve been eating cheesy poofs for two days and a friend of mine said it wasn’t nutritious and I’ve been so hungry, mommy.” Eric replied.

His mother immediately fell for it. “Okay, sweetie. I’ll cook you some Salisbury steak right away.”

“Thanks mehm.” Eric said, smiling happily.

His mother, clueless as ever, smiled back.

“And can we maybe have dinner together. You know, to talk and bond like other families do?” Eric questioned, already knowing her response.

“Of course, Eric. It’s the least I can do for being gone for so long.”

“Gee, thanks, mehm.” Eric responded. _‘Perfect…’_ he thought, smiling evilly.


	2. Chapter 2: You're Not Alone

 

Chapter 2: You're Not Alone

 

 

* * *

 

“Here you go, hon,” Liane said, placing a plate of Salisbury steak before Cartman. She took a seat in the chair across from him.

“Kickass!” Cartman exclaimed before promptly digging into his steak. Liane smiled before taking a bite out of her own steak. The two Cartmans sat silently at the table, enjoying their meals.

When Cartman was halfway finished with his steak, he put his fork down and kept his eyes focused on his mother eating. Liane remained unaware, continuing to cut another piece of her steak. Cartman cleared his throat, causing her to look up at him.

“Mom, I have a proposition for you,” he responded in his professional voice.

Liane’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh! What is it, poopsiekins?” she asked.

He took a dramatic pause to let the tension set in. Then, he spoke.

“Mom, what if I told you that I found a way that will make us both a million dollars richer, and have us chilling by pool side in our multi-million dollar mansion by next week?” he asked.

Liane’s face brightened. “Ooh! What did you have in mind, dear?” she asked.

“Just hear me out, mom. Your part is easy. All I need you to do is go on the Maury show and pretend that you were one of Johnny Depp’s past lovers, and that I’m the son he never knew about. That way, he’ll feel bad, arrange a schedule to meet with me to get to know his son better, and then we’ll demand that he pay child support for all the years that he missed out on,” he explained. “By going on the Maury show, we’ll gain publicity, and if he tries to turn us down, other people will know and pressure him to do his fatherly duty. Then, he’ll have to pay his part and before you know it, we’ll be rolling in the dough.”

Liane was hesitant. “Oh, I don’t know, sweetie. That doesn't seem like a nice thing to do," she responded.

He sighed. “Okay, look mom. I didn’t want to break it to you this way, but I don’t have a father and I’m feeling kind of bummed,” he answered. “It’s not fair that I have to grow up watching other kids spend time with their father and have someone to look up to while I have pretend that I’m not lonely at night and that I’m okay with not having a father.”

He looked to his mother with sad eyes. “I know that you’re not okay with it either, mom. You’re lonely too, and miss the feel of a man’s touch at night. Deep down, you want this just as much as I do. And what we’re doing is not really mean. We’re just giving Johnny Depp more people to love in his life, and isn’t love the most beautiful gift of all?”

A singer tear rolled down Liane’s cheek. Cartman smiled inwardly. He knew how to work his mom.

“Mom, all I’m asking you to do is pretend that you’ve dated Johnny Depp before. I’m sure he’s dated tons of other women already. He won’t even know the difference. You do that, and we’ll both be needing wheelbarrows for all the money we’ll be packing,” he said.

“But Poopsiekins,” Liane said, “Mommy has already dated Johnny Depp.”

“I know that mom, but-” He stopped. “Come again?”

“Mommy has already dated Johnny Depp, sweetie. You see, it all happened when I was just a teenager,” she started, looking up fondly at the memory.

…

_“I remember being a wee bit reckless at that time. One time we went drag racing together. Johnny was so good to me. We had a really great time.”_

It was a warm summer day in L.A. A large crowd of onlookers swarmed a pair of motorcyclists.

A young Liane Cartman dressed in a short black dress and red stilettoes clung tightly to a young brown-haired man in a black jacket on a red Harley Davidson motorcycle. In one of her hands, she held a glass of tequila. She laughed light-heartedly.

“Yoohoo Johnny~! The faster we go, the more loving you’ll get later on,” she slurred.

“You’ve got it, babe!” Johnny Depp said, revving up the engine. He put on his dark shades and gave a challenging nod to the motorcyclist across from him.

Across from them, a young dark-haired man in a blue motorcycle revved up his engine in return.

A blonde woman in a skimpy red bikini crossed out in front of both motorcycles. She held up one arm.

“Racers ready!” she called out. The crowd roared.

A moment passed.

“Go!” she yelled, thrusting her arm downwards.

Both motorcycles immediately sped off with Johnny Depp in the lead.

“Oh my!” Liane exclaimed. She attempted a sip of her drink, but spilled it all over her dress. She laughed.

“You like that, huh?” he asked the giggling Liane. Johnny Depp looked behind him. The other motorcyclist was tailing them. “Watch this.”

Johnny Depp slowed the motorcycle down, allowing the motorcyclist to catch up. The other motorcyclist glanced over and slowed down his motorcycle in turn. Both motorcycles were now tied. Then, without warning, Johnny Depp floored his motorcycle, causing a billow of smoke to be left with the other motorcyclist. Both Liane and Johnny Depp laughed as they crossed the finish line.

Their motorcycle skidded to a halt, and Johnny Depp and Liane got out. The crowd cheered, chanting Johnny Depp’s name over and over. Liane wasted no time in getting better acquainted with Johnny Depp. She jumped into his arms, wrapping both legs around his waist.

“Oh Johnny! Kiss me,” she said before jamming her tongue in his mouth and making out with him. Johnny Depp complied immediately. After a few minutes of intense making out, Liane broke off from the kiss and gave Johnny Depp a sly look.

“Mm, how about we go somewhere a little more private dear, so I can give you a better view of my goodie-goodies.”

“You sure get straight to the point,” Johnny Depp replied, grinning.

_“Oh yes, it was a lovely time indeed. I remember feeling so sore for about a week after we-”_

“Gross, mom!” Cartman cut in, shutting his eyes. “I hate it when you do that.”

Liane chuckled. “Oh! Sorry, sweetie. Mommy forgets sometimes that you are still my little love muffin.”

Cartman blushed in embarrassment. “Mom, quit it! I’m not a baby,” he said. Then, he looked serious. “So, you’re telling me you had the chance to be with Johnny Depp and be freaking rich and famous, and you still chose to live in this redneck town with a bunch of dumbass people and poor fuckers like Kenny?” he asked.

"Well, sweetie, at the time, I had other obligations to fulfill,” she answered. “Like taking care of a beautiful baby boy.

His eyes widened. "You mean . . . ."

She nodded. "Yes, Eric, the beautiful baby boy I was pregnant with while dating Johnny Depp was you,” she responded.

Cartman went quiet, seeming to mull her words over. “But . . . can’t you just, you know, pretend that he was the father of the baby you were pregnant with? Please mom? Just for a little while?" he asked sweetly.

"Well, Muffin, I'm afraid that would be lying, and I haven't spoken to the guy in years," she said. “We broke up shortly after he heard I was with child.”

Cartman didn’t take no for an answer. "But mom, haven't you ever wondered what it would be like to relive those glorious days when you could have anything you want?" he asked.

She smiled. "I have you for that, honey."

He rolled his eyes. "I know, mom. But haven't you wanted something more? Haven't you missed being able to do anything you want without struggling to make ends meet?"

She considered it. "Well . . . maybe . . . ." she said.

Cartman reached over and grabbed Liane’s hand, startling her.

"Mom, look, all you've got to do is fake a few tears here and there, make up some story about how much you've missed Johnny Depp, and have been wanting him to meet his son, and then you and I will be set for life,” he persuaded. “And besides, isn't it kind of your job to make sure that your child is fully taken care of?"

"Well, I guess . . . but sweetie, what are we going to do when he asks for a DNA test to see if you're really his child?"

"You leave that to me, mom. I've already got it under control."

"Well, okay, Eric, but only for a little while," Liane replied.

Cartman grinned. "Sweet!" he exclaimed. He internally noted how his plan was coming along quite nicely. It wouldn’t be long before he would have his million dollars.

Not long at all.

…

On Wednesday morning, Cartman awoke to the sound of his mother’s voice.

“Eric, sweetie! It’s time to wake up. You’ll be late for school,” she said, gently shaking him. Cartman groaned, pulling the covers over his head to block out his mother and any sunlight.

“If you stay in bed, your breakfast will get cold, snookums.”

Cartman immediately sat up in his bed. He didn’t need to be told twice. The second he sat up, his nose was hit with the intoxicating aroma of bacon, eggs, and pancakes. His stomach growled.

“I’m up,” he said, before he rolled out of bed, waddled out of the bedroom, and raced down the stairs. Liane chuckled behind her hand. That was the son she knew.

…

After breakfast, Cartman went to his room, and hurriedly began packing his belongings in his backpack. He figured that if he got to school before the bell, he could make Butters share all of his math answers for the homework.

He also vaguely remembered that it was gym day. It sucked ass. Everyone was always making fun of him for being the slowest runner in the class. Well, excuse him for not wanting to kill himself.

He looked around for his gym clothes, but they were nowhere to be found in his room.

“Mom!” he yelled. “Where did you put my gym clothes?”

“They’re in the dryer, hon,” Liane’s voice answered from downstairs.

Cartman groaned at having to walk over to the laundry room, two rooms over. When he opened the dryer, he found his gray gym uniform with the “South Park Elementary” labeling, but . . . the uniform appeared much smaller than he remembered.

“Mom!” he yelled. “The dryer shrunk my clothes again!”

His mother walked in shortly after, and pulled out a few shirts and pants from the dryer, inspecting them closely.

“Hm, that’s odd,” she regarded thoughtfully. “None of the other clothes shrank, and I thought I made sure to use cold water this time in the wash,” she pondered aloud.

“Well, thanks to your careless mistake yet again, mom, I have to listen to my friends call me fatass and lardbutt in gym class, all because my clothes are too small to fit me now,” he complained. “Sheesh, this is like the fourth time this month. Get it together mom.”

“I’m sorry, sweetie. How about mommy packs you a pastrami sandwich and chocolate cake for lunch?”

Cartman scratched his chin. “Make it three pastrami sandwiches, three chocolate cakes, and two chocolate chip cookies, and we have a deal.”

“You’ve got it, hon,” Liane answered before going on her merry way.

“Sweet,” he replied with a grin.

…

At school, Cartman waddled over to Kyle and Stan at their lockers.

“’Sup,” he greeted.

Kyle paused his conversation with Stan to look over at him.

“Fatass,” he said. “Why are you here? Your locker’s on the other side of the hallway.”

“For your information, Jew, I just came back from my locker,” Cartman answered, matter-of-factly. “And I didn’t come here to talk to you, I came here to wait for Kenny.”

“Speaking of which,” Kyle replied. “Cartman, did you remember to ask your mom to bake a cake for Kenny’s birthday party tomorrow?”

“Yeah, Cartman. You better not have forgotten. You know your mom’s cakes are the only reason anyone ever invites you to their parties,” Stan chimed in.

“Okay, first off. Fuck you, Stan,” Cartman said, casting an angry look in his direction. “And second, yes, I remembered to ask my mom about the cake. I asked her right before I went to bed. She told me she’d bake a special triple-layered chocolate mousse cake for the party.”

“Awesome! Kenny’s party’s going to kickass,” Stan cheered.

“Yeah!” Kyle agreed.

“Hey guys!” Kenny’s voice greeted. A blonde-haired kid sporting an orange parka walked up to them.

They all stared at him.

He raised an eyebrow. “What?” he asked.

“Your hood, dude,” Stan pointed out.

Kenny blinked. “Oh, right. I, uh, decided it was time to ditch the hood. Apparently, chicks dig you more when they can actually hear what you’re saying,” he explained. Then, he looked to Kyle. “So, uh, what were you guys just talking about?”

Kyle jumped in surprise. “Oh! Um,” he started. “We were just saying that, uh—“

“I was just telling them that I’m planning on changing my schedule so that I have gym in the spring,” Cartman interjected. “That way, I can show off more of my hot bod when I run around the track.”

Kenny smirked. “Heh. That’s funny,” he said.

Cartman blinked. “What’s funny? Me changing my schedule?”

“No. You running,” he answered.

Stan and Kyle snickered.

Cartman’s eyebrows furrowed. “Kenneh! Quit joking, seriouslah!” he demanded.

Kenny arched a brow. “I was joking?” he questioned.

“I’m going to kill you someday, Kenneh,” Cartman mumbled in annoyance.

Kenny rolled his eyes. “Yeah, like that’s supposed to scare me, fatboy,” he said. The school’s first warning bell sounded. He turned to Stan and Kyle. “Well, guys. I have to go. Annie says she’ll let me watch the cheerleaders at practice today if I promise to save a seat for her at the back of the class in Science.” With that, he walked away.

Stan turned to Kyle. “Kenny’s still the same Kenny, even without the hood, but it’s still kind of hard to get used to,” he said.

“Yeah, I’ll say,” Kyle agreed. The second bell sounded. “We should probably head to class.”

“Okay,” Stan said, packing up all his books.

Kyle shut his locker and turned to Cartman. “Cartman, meet me at my house after school. 3p.m. sharp,” he said. “I’m not going to let you sit there and watch me do all the work for the project this time.”

“Can’t,” Cartman answered. “I’ve got things to do.”

“Like what?” he challenged. “You’re such a liar, fatass.”

“Am not,” he replied. “And like I’d tell you, Jew. You’d just try to get in on it like the conniving Jew you are,” he said.

“In on what? Fatass, you’re not making any sense,” Kyle responded. The final warning bell sounded.

“Well, guys. I wish I could stay and chat, but that’s the final warning bell, and I’d hate to have to listen to Ms. Roberts bitch again. Later dudes,” Cartman said, walking away.

“Cartman, wait! What were you—” Kyle tried, but it was too late. Cartman was already out of earshot. Or maybe he was within earshot and just didn’t want to listen. Either way, Cartman never looked back.

“You know what?! Fine, then. I’ll just tell Ms. Garrison that I did most of the work!” Kyle called after him. Then, he looked to Stan. “Damn it! I hate it when he does that!”

“Later for him, Kyle. We’re going to be late,” Stan said, ushering Kyle along.

“Yeah,” Kyle agreed. The two hurried to Science.

…

Cartman stood before a gate with the words, SOUTH PARK GENETIC ENGINERRING, labelled across the top. Beyond the gate was a steep, snow-covered hill leading up to Dr. Mephisto’s home. The clouds hovered ominously above the house as lightning bolts etched the sky. It was weird how the stormy clouds hovered nowhere else, but the house, and Cartman didn’t recall there being rain in the forecast that morning.

He took a deep breath. This was it. With this missing piece, he would be able to convince the world that Johnny Depp had a son he never actually had. With that in mind, he headed through the gate doors and up the winding road to the house.

When he finally reached the house, he had to take a few moments to catch his breath. The journey was more exercise than he’d done in a month. He rang the butt-shaped button on the door. Predictably, fart noises sounded from it.

He heard heavy footsteps moving towards the door. Then, the door opened, revealing an elderly man standing with a cane in a yellow floral shirt and park ranger hat, and his mini-me clone standing beside him.

Cartman straightened up. “Good afternoon. Dr. Mephisto, I presume? I am in need of your genetic engineering services. Nothing big. I just need to you to alter my DNA a little,” Cartman explained in his professional voice.

Dr. Mephisto stared down at him. Then, he blinked. He pointed at Cartman. “Oh, I remember you! You’re that fat kid the whole town lied to about your mom being a hermaphrodite so you’d stop bothering us about your real father.”

Cartman’s face reddened in rage. “You son-of-a bi—” he stopped himself, clearing his throat. “Err, yes. But I have to correct you on one thing, Dr. Mephisto. I am totally not fat.”

“You look fat to me,” Dr. Mephisto said. His mini version chuckled.

“Well, with all due respect, sir,” Cartman said, “You look like a shriveled-up reject that no one gave a shit about so you live alone on this mountain, cloning failed experiments, and a mini-version of yourself to cover up for the fact that no sane woman ever wanted to bear children as hideous as you are, and you will probably die alone with nothing to show for it.”

Dr. Mephisto’s eyes widened. “Oh,” he replied.

“Shall we move on?” Cartman responded.

“Yes, of course,” he said, opening the door wider.

Cartman nodded. “Very nice,” he said.

Cartman followed Dr. Mephisto deep in his lab of misshapen butt creatures. When they passed by a large machine, Dr. Mephisto stopped and turned around to face him.

“So,” he said. “You said you wanted me to alter your DNA. Any particular type of DNA you want me to alter it to?”

“I request that you alter my DNA to Johnny Depp’s.”

Dr. Mephisto jumped in surprise. “Johnny Depp?! May I ask why?”

Cartman shrugged. “Why not?” he said.

Dr. Mephisto nodded his head. “I see,” he replied, as if that explained everything. He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “A celebrity, huh? That might take a couple of days. I assume you have a DNA sample from Johnny Depp, be it a hair strand or a nail clipping?”

Cartman brought out a plastic bag of black pubic hair. “Will these do?” he asked, holding the bag out to Dr. Mephisto.

Dr. Mephisto took the bag from Cartman, inspecting it carefully. “And these . . . are Johnny Depp’s? Where did you find these?”

“Ebay,” Cartman answered.

Dr. Mephisto blinked. “I-I see . . . They sure have everything on the Internet nowadays,” he muttered. “Are you sure you don’t want me to just clone another Johnny Depp for you? I’m sure he could re-enact movie scenes just as well.” Then, he added. “You know, probably.”

Cartman shook his head. “No, I need you to do just as I have requested, Dr. Mephisto. I need you to alter my DNA so that it matches Johnny Depp’s DNA,” he said.

The doctor sighed. “Oh, fine,” he replied. Then, he looked to his mini version. “Kevin, take this bag of pubic hair, put it into that green slot, and enter the data into the machine there.”

“EEE!” Kevin said, taking the bag and following the doctor’s command.

When Kevin gave the thumbs up that the data was entered, Dr. Mephisto looked to Cartman. “Right. Now, at this point, I would usually ask for you to give me a sample of your DNA, be it a hair strand or a nail clipping. But, before we begin, I’ll be needing $25,000,” he responded.

Cartman’s eyebrows shot up. "$25,000?! The fuck?! I don't have that kind of money!" he said angrily.

“Oh, you don’t? I-I see . . . .” Dr. Mephisto replied, turning off the machine. The machine powered down. He faced Cartman. "Tough luck, kid. No money, no DNA."

Cartman wasn’t done. “Since when do you charge for DNA altering? In your posted ad, you said everything was free, you asshole!"

Dr. Mephisto nodded. "It was. That is, until I got sued for digging up cadavers from the old Indian burial grounds to use for my experiments," he explained. “You see, the cadavers are important for running my machines.”

"Where am I supposed to get that kind of money? The whole reason I even want my DNA altered is to get money!" Cartman argued.

Dr. Mephisto shrugged. "Don't care how. Get the money, and then I'll alter your DNA. But until then,” he motioned over to his mini-version. “Kevin will show you to the door.”

Without warning, Kevin came from behind Cartman and lifted him off his feet. “Da fuck?! Let me go! You can’t do this to me! I’ll sue you for all you’re worth!” he shouted.

However, his pleas were ignored as Kevin marched him to the door, and threw him back out onto the winding road. Cartman heard the door slam shut.

Cartman got up, waving an angry fist. “Yeah?! Well, screw you guys! I’m going home!” he called out. He brushed himself off. “Goshdamnit,” he mumbled before trudging in the direction of home.

…

Cartman emptied a handful of cheesy poofs in his mouth as he absentmindedly watched another re-run of the Terrance and Phillip show. Terrance had just asked Phillip to look up and hold his position while Terrance climbed a small ladder and let out a big one in Phillip’s face. Phillip screamed, causing Terrance to laugh, and soon enough, Phillip was laughing with him.

“Ahahahaha!” Cartman laughed, just as the front door opened. Liane Cartman and a blonde-haired woman carrying a small blonde boy stood in front of the TV.

“Ay! You’re blocking the screen!” Cartman exclaimed, trying to look around them.

“Eric sweetie, I need you to do a favor for mommy,” Liane said.

“Not now, mom. I’m busy,” he said hurriedly. “And tell your slutty friend to move.”

Liane smiled sweetly. “Honey, this is Ms. Alders,” she introduced, gesturing to her friend. “And this is her four-year old son, Tommy.” She gestured to the child in Ms. Alder’s arms.

“Don’t care, mom,” Cartman responded, turning up the volume to the TV to drown her out. His mom frowned, plugging out the TV.

“Da fuck, mom?!” he exclaimed.

Liane ignored him. “Eric, mommy’s friend and I are going to a grownup party. Mommy needs you to be on your best behavior and watch little Tommy for a couple of hours since your babysitter Shelly is going to a concert tonight and couldn’t be here,” she said.

Cartman glared up at her. “Oh hell no! I know how you bitches work. The second you get some alcohol in you and start talking, you forget about everything, and I miss out on dinner. So, fuck you, mom, and fuck you, Ms. Alders,” he replied.

Liane frowned. “Now, Eric, don’t be stubborn.”

“I said, no mom!” Cartman argued. “There is no way I’m going to watch a screaming kid while you two have fun and party all night long.” He crossed his arms.

Liane sighed, looking to her friend. Then, an idea hit her. “But, sweetie, if you watch baby Tommy until we get back, Mommy will get extra chicken from KFC tonight,” she persuaded.

That perked him up. “The Kernel?” he asked in a softer tone.

Liane gave a knowing smile. “Yes, hon. I’ll get three buckets of chicken instead of one if you watch Tommy for me,” she assured.

“A-And I’ll give you two dollars!” Ms. Alders chimed in. She put Tommy down and reached into her purse, revealing two ones.

Cartman scratched his chin, thoughtfully.  The money would surely bring him one step closer to getting his DNA altered.

Cartman grinned. “Deal!” he said. “But if you guys take longer than two hours, I demand overtime. An extra dollar for every hour you’re late.”

Liane and Ms. Alders smiled.

“Done!” the Ms. Alders agreed. She handed Cartman the two dollars. Cartman pocketed the money.

Ms. Alders crouched down, facing her son. She put two hands on his shoulders. “Now, Tommy,” she said, looking into his eyes. “This fine young gentleman has agreed to look after you for a couple of hours. Do you think you can be a good little boy while Mommy’s away?”

Tommy nodded.

Ms. Alders smiled, giving him a kiss on the forehead. “Thatta boy. Mommy will be back soon. Love you,” she said, getting up. She smiled at Cartman. “Tommy is a little shy and doesn’t talk much, but I’m sure you’ll take great care of him,” she said.

“Whatever,” Cartman replied.

Liane and Ms. Alders left the house. Cartman looked to the young boy standing in front of him as he sucked on his thumb.

Cartman cleared his throat, causing the boy to look at him. “Okay, kid, let’s establish a couple of ground rules. This,” he said, gesturing to the couch he was sitting on. “Is my couch. Only I get to sit here. You take the floor. Me, nyeh. You, hyeh. Got that?”

Tommy nodded.

“And second, there will be no crying when Terrance and Phillip is on. I’m seriouslah. If you cry, I’ll kick you square in the nuts,” he explained, pointing to his chubby foot. “And finally,” he pointed upstairs. “If you need to use the bathroom, it’s upstairs, down the hall, second room on the left.”

He looked to the bag of cheesy poofs in his hands. “Also, this is my bag of cheesy poofs. That means none of it goes to you. Understand?” he asked.

Toddy nodded once more.

“Very nice,” Cartman nodded in acknowledgement. He then got up and waddled over to the TV, plugging it in again and pushing the power button. The TV turned on. Then, he waddled back to his seat. Tommy sat on the floor, continuing to suck his thumb.

“Ever watched Terrance and Phillip?” Cartman asked when he was seated comfortably.

Tommy shook his head.

Cartman grinned. “Well, get a load of this,” he said.

…

An hour into the Terrance and Phillip show, there was a knock on the door. Cartman looked to the young boy sitting on the ground.

“Alright, kid, since my mom isn’t here, I’m putting you in charge of door duty,” he said.

Tommy stared back. The knocking grew louder.

“That means get the door,” he said.

Tommy continued to stare, sucking his thumb.

“I’ll tell mom on you,” Cartman threatened.

Tommy did nothing.

He groaned. “Dumb kid,” he muttered, getting up and waddling to the door. He went to the door, opening it.

“Alright, asshole, if you don’t stop—“He paused, taking in the elderly man in a purple shirt and blue jeans standing on the doorstep. “Who the fuck are you?”

The elderly man looked down at Cartman. “Oh, I was just passing by the house, and I happened to look in the window and couldn’t help but notice that remarkable young fellow sitting in front of the TV with you. The way he sucks on his thumb so slowly in such a tantalizing manner is just . . . mmm.”

Cartman gave a bored look. “Okay, weirdo, you have ten seconds to leave before I sick my cat on you,” he said.

The man’s eyes widened, putting his hands up in surrender. “No, wait! You don’t understand!” he exclaimed. “Please, I just want to show that handsome young boy of yours a nice time. It’ll only be for the afternoon.”

Cartman snorted. "Yeah, like I'm going to give up two whole dollars for some creepy old pedophile to have his way with my money ticket," he replied, beginning to shut the door.

The man stuck his foot in the doorway. "I'll double what they're paying," he insisted.

Cartman looked back up at the man with an intense stare.

"Done," he said. “Wait here.”

The elderly man nodded.

A few moments later, Cartman was dragging out a young boy by the back of his shirt. “Here he is. Now where’s my money?” he asked.

The grinning man forked over the cash in exchange for the four-year-old. The elder man rubbed Tommy on his shoulders slowly before they left the house. Cartman counted the money as the man drove off with Tommy. Tommy stared sadly back at Cartman through the back window of a black car. Cartman slammed the door, taking his seat back on the couch.

…

Shortly after, Liane and Ms. Alders returned to the house.

"Eric, sweetie, we're home!" Liane called out.

Cartman jumped up from the couch. "Kickass! KFC, here I come!" he exclaimed excitedly.

Ms. Alders approached him. "I can't thank you enough for looking after Tommy," she said.

"Oh, actually I sold him off to some old geezer not too long ago. I got four dollars! See?" He said happily, showing her the cash.

Ms. Alders looked like she was on the verge of having a heart attack. "You WHAT?!" She screeched. "AHHH my baby!"

She ran out the door and into the street without looking. An oncoming truck hit her immediately, taking her mangled body with it.

Cartman looked at his mom. "Mooooom, can we go to KFC now?" He whined.

"Bad Eric," his mother scolded him. "No KFC for you!"

"Say what now?!" That perked him up. "But we had a deal! You better not fuck me, mom!"

"I promised you KFC only if you looked after the kid until we came back."

"But moooom, I did look after him."

"Until we came back, Eric! Now find him now!" She ordered, uncharacteristically.

Cartman breathed out a long, irritated sigh. "Fine . . . ." he said.

He dialed a number into a phone. "Hello? ¿Es carlito? Escucha, necessito encontrar un niño pequeño que tiene cuatro años. Sí, it should be a black car. Un carro negro. The license plate number? Hold on. It's XXX-XXXX. You got that?” He asked. He pulled out a radar in one of the drawers. “I'm tracking him right now. He should be headed in your direction now. Bring your gang along. Don't let him get away. How long? Veinte minutos? Okay. Hasta pronto." He hung up.

Cartman looked at his mom. "I hired a Mexican gang. They should be here with the kid in about twenty minutes."

Liane’s eyes widened in amazement.

As promised, twenty minutes later, the gang arrived with Tommy.

Cartman took Tommy by his hands, and handed him over to Liane. “Ah, yes. Nicely done. I believe he won't be bothering us again?” he asked.

The Mexican gang leader shook his head.

Cartman grinned, handing a Mexican man a dollar. The Mexican men all grinned. "Very nice. You keep the job up and I might upgrade you all to a dollar fifty," he said.

"Sí, gracias, Señor Cartman," said the leader.

Cartman shut the door, turning to his mother. He clapped his hands together. "Okay, now let's get that KFC," he said.

"But, Eric, what about Tommy?"

Cartman shrugged. "Sure, we can bring him too. I think they have kids' meals too."

"That isn't quite what mommy meant, sweetie."

…

As it turned out, the Cartmans did take a trip to KFC and brought Tommy along with them. Just as they were all finished with their meals, Liane’s IPhone rang. She answered it.

“Hello?” she asked. Her eyes widened. “Oh goodness, how terrible! Yes, yes, I see. We’ll be there right away, doctor.” With that, she hung up.

Liane’s face wore a solemn expression. She looked to Tommy.

“Tommy, sweetie. I have some bad news. It’s about your mom.”

Tommy’s thumb fell out of his mouth, his face paled.

“Mo . . . mma?”

Cartman reached over and grabbed a chicken leg from Tommy’s plate.

…

Liane walked Cartman and Tommy over to the intensive care unit. They had just checked in at the front desk as visitors, and were now headed to Ms. Alders’ room. In one of Liane’s hands, she carried a bouquet of “get well” flowers. When they arrived at the room, Liane slowly opened the door to reveal a blonde woman heavily-wrapped in bandages from head-to-toe, attached to a few IVs, a ventilator, and a beeping heart monitor.

“Moooom, do we have to be here? Terrance and Phillip is on!” Cartman whined.

“Hush, Eric!” Liane scolded him, watching as Tommy slowly walked over to his mother.

“Momma?” he asked, peering up at her. Tears fell from his eyes. “Momma!”

Ms. Alders did not respond.

Liane placed the bouquet of flowers on the nightstand beside Ms. Alders. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Cartman yawned. “Moooom, can we go now?” he complained.

Liane looked back at him and smiled sadly. “Yes, Eric. I think we should leave.”

With that, the Cartmans left the room, leaving an incapacitated mother and her grieving son alone together.

…

As the Cartmans walked down the hallway, Cartman suddenly stopped when he heard a man’s voice beckoning him.

Liane noticed this, stopping to look back at him.

“What is it, poopsikins?” she asked, her face reflecting confusion.

Cartman didn’t answer, but turned to face an elderly man lying in bed in a small room. The door was wide open with the number “1115” etched across it.

“You there, young man. Could you please come in here for a moment? I have something I need to tell you,” the man asked.

“My mom says not to talk to strangers,” Cartman replied, turning to leave.

“Wait! Please don’t go!” the man’s voice called in desperation. Cartman stopped. “I have something to give you.”

Curiosity piqued, Cartman turned back around and walked towards the room. “It better not be a disease,” he mumbled.

“Eric, sweetie? Don’t stray too far from mommy!” he heard his mother’s voice from behind him.

He entered the room, keeping a safe distance away from the man, just in case he tried to rape him.

The elder man leaned back against his pillow, giving a faint smile. “Come . . . closer . . . .” he stated weakly.

Cartman took a hesitant forward.

The man laughed. “I’m not going to bite.”

“Look, mister. If you’re going to give me something, then do it now. Otherwise, I’m going home,” Cartman replied. His mom joined him then.

“Honey, we really shouldn’t be bothering the patients,” Liane said.

“I know, mom, but this guy says he wants to give me something,” he replied.

Her eyes widened, looking to the man in question. “Oh! What is it that you wanted to give my little Eric?” she asked.

“Well . . . actually . . . ma’am . . . it’s more-so money-related. You see, I am a very wealthy man, but . . . the problem is . . . I’m not very . . . close with my relatives,” he paused for a moment to catch his breath. “Now, mind you . . . that hasn’t really . . . bothered me since they’ve been trying- . . . trying to get their hands on my money for years . . . but now . . . I’m getting up there in age and I- . . . I really did some thinking. I thought . . . what if I died? Where would . . . that money go? So . . . I decided that . . . in order to prevent . . . my relatives from getting . . . their hands on it . . . I’d . . . give the money to someone who really needed it.” His eyes met Liane’s. “That’s when I saw your boy.”

Liane gasped. “My Eric? Sir, what are you saying?” she asked.

“I’m saying that . . . I want your boy to inherit . . . the ten million I’ve hidden somewhere. It’s . . . in a chest, but . . . it needs- . . . needs a passcode that only . . . I know. With your permission, ma’am . . . I’d like to give that code . . . to your son,” he finished.

Cartman, who had been on the verge of falling asleep through the man’s speech, was now suddenly wide awake.

“Oh my God, mom! I need that money!” he announced excitedly. Maybe he wouldn’t need Johnny Depp after all.

“But sweetie, we can’t just take his money,” she reasoned.

Cartman heard none of it. “Goshdamnit mom! Don’t get in the way of a man’s dream!” he said, moving up to the elderly man’s bed. He pulled out an IPhone. “Alright, now what’s the code?”

“Eric!” Liane cried.

The man gave staggered laughs. “Don’t worry, ma’am, it’s quite alright. It’s refreshing . . . to see someone with so much . . . energy . . . at the hospital,” he responded. He looked to the eager boy in front of him. “Now, Eric, was it? The code I’m . . . about to give you . . . is very important. It’s seven num—”

“Just skip to the numbers, asshole,” he cut in.

“Eric! Be nice!” Liane chastised.

The man laughed again. “As you wish . . . The passcode is five . . . seven . . . nine—” he coughed violently.

“579 . . . what?” Cartman asked.

The man took a few deep breaths and started again. “F-Five . . . seven . . . nine . . . fift—” he stopped abruptly, gasping for air.

Cartman rolled his eyes. He walked over to the nightstand and grabbed a small notebook. “Mom, do you have a pen?” he asked.

“Oh! Why, yes, Eric. Hold on for just a moment,” Liane answered, rummaging through her purse.

Meanwhile, the elder man appeared to be in distress, his gasps growing more pronounced as he began grasping at his throat.

“Mom, hurry!” Cartman exclaimed.

“Oh, I know there’s a pen in here somewhere . . . .” Liane said as she continued to rummage through his purse.

“Mom, just empty your purse!” he replied. Impatiently, he rushed over to his mom and grabbed her purse, turning it over and letting all the items fall out onto the floor. Among the items was a mirror, a sanitary napkin, a red wallet, a dildo, a checkbook, and . . . a pen!

“Finally!” Cartman said, grabbing the pen.

“Oh, that’s where I put it,” Liane replied.

He glared at her. “Thanks a lot, mom! Why do you women always need to bring so much stuff?!” he asked.

“I’m sorry hon. I—”

BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

The sound of high-pitched tone stopped them. Both Cartmans turned to look at the elderly man now lying lifelessly on his bed. The heart monitor that made occasional beeps was now showing a line across the screen and emitting a continuous tone.

Without warning, a crowd of nurses and a doctor burst into the room. One nurse carried a defibrillator in hand.

“What’s going on? What happened?” the doctor said, looking to them.

Liane was in shock. “I-I don’t know, doctor. He just-“

“It’s okay. We’ll try to revive him. I’m going to need you both to wait in the hall now,” he cut in.

“Alright, doct—”

“No way am I leaving without my money!” Cartman exclaimed, pushing past them.

“Eric!” Liane shouted.

Cartman rushed to the patient’s bed side. “Where did you leave the ten million? Goshdamnit! Wake up! I need you to tell me where you're keeping the money!" Cartman said, shaking the man's shoulders furiously.

Suddenly, two nurses grabbed him from behind. “Da fuck?! Let go of me! He can’t die!” Cartman shouted, thrashing about. He was dragged out of the room.

“We’ll take things from here,” a nurse said, shutting the door.

“Thank you,” Liane said, standing next to Cartman.

Cartman banged on the door. “Goshdamnit! Let me in!”

Liane looked to the energetic boy beside her. “Let’s give him some time, dear. The doctor and nurses are doing the best that they can.”

Cartman looked to his mother angrily. “It isn’t fair! I was so close! Getting my money taken away from me like this is like the biggest ‘fuck you’ ever!” he said. “It’s all your fault mom! You took so long with your stupid purse!”

“Poopsiekins, I—”

“If he dies, I’m holding you personally accountable!” Cartman replied, storming away.

Liane sighed.

…

A couple of hours later, a doctor approaches the Cartmans in the waiting area.

Both Cartmans perked up.

“How is he, doctor? Is he going to be okay?” she asked.

“He should be just fine now. We almost lost him a couple of times, but we were able to revive him. He’s a little weak though, so when you speak to him, don’t do anything reckless,” the doctor looked to Eric especially.

“Oh, don’t worry, doctor. We’ll only stay a little while,” Liane agreed. With that, both Cartmans got up and walked over to Room 1115.

Inside, the heart monitor showed occasional blips on the screen. As they approached the hospital bed, they saw the elder man’s chest move up and down, and his eyes were closed. However, when Cartman stood over him, the man slowly opened his eyes.

Cartman breathed a sigh of relief. “You're awake. Now tell me where you left the money."

The man stared at him in confusion. "Money?" he asked.

"Yes! The million dollars you said that you were keeping somewhere!"

 

"Sweetie, let him rest . . . ." His mother coaxed softly.

"No mom! We're not leaving until I get my goshdamn money!" Cartman protested. He turned back to the man. "Now tell me where it is."

Man takes a moment to ponder it. "Money? Oh no . . . sonny. I'm afraid . . . I don't have much of that these days."

"Don't try to hold out of me, old man! You said you were keeping a million dollars in a secret place! Now tell me where it is."

"What? I said no such thing."

"Yes, you did."

The elderly man gave staggered laughs. "Oh, well . . . You should know better . . . than to take what a sick man in bed says seriously . . . I'm sure I was out of my mind . . . thanks for saving me though."

Cartman levels the man with an intense stare. “Listen, asshole. I did not miss Terrance and Phillip and wait here for two hours just for you to lie to me,” he said. “Now, I’ll ask you again. Where. Is. My. Money?!”

He grabbed the IVs that were attached to the man.

“Eric, don’t!” Liane said.

“W-What are you doing?! N-Nurse!” the man yelled.

“Wrong answer,” Cartman said before ripping the cords out harshly. The man screamed in pain.

Many nurses rushed in and pulled Cartman away before he could cause any serious damage. Both Cartmans were then insisted to leave the hospital.

…

…

The drive home that night had been torturous for Cartman. He had spent the entire half hour futilely trying to explain to his mom why grounding him for a week was a bad idea since a) the old man lied to him about the money and b) he was actually doing the world a favor by killing the man since there were enough bad people in the world, and the man was old and sick anyways.

So, instead of eating cheesy poofs in front of the television like he had originally planned, he was instead forced to sit in his room and come up with a plan for how he would earn enough money to get his DNA altered by Dr. Mephisto.

Many crinkled up papers later, he was finally able to come up with a plan that would work. But first, he needed an accomplice—a partner in crime, so-to-speak. He grinned.

He knew just the person for the job.

…

…

The next day, at Stark’s pond, a young dark-haired girl in a pink beret carried a clipboard with a stack of papers with the words, “Save the Marine Life,” labelled across the top.

Wendy spotted a group of six people passing by and she gave them a cheery smile. The group stopped in front of her. “Hi there! My name is Wendy Testaburger. I’m starting a petition to raise environmental awareness for the marine life at Stark’s Pond. By signing this petition, you would really be helping get the mayor’s attention for this great cause. Now, who’s w-” she stopped mid-sentence when she saw the group leave. “-with me . . .” she finished sadly. To her horror, she saw a person throw a crinkled wrapper in the pond.

Wendy groaned in frustration. "Damn it! Why won't anyone listen to me?!" She shouted.

“‘Coz no one gives a fuck about stupid fish,” Cartman answered, walking up to her.

"No, Cartman," she stated firmly.

Cartman’s face twisted in puzzlement. "No? What the fuck does that mean?"

"You're going to try to convince me to join some crazy scheme of yours, so I’m just telling you ‘no’ in advance that I don't want any part of it," Wendy said, matter-of-factly.

He rolled his eyes. "What, so all of a sudden you're some kind of mind reader now?"

She put her hands on her hips, giving him the “no bullshit look.” “Cartman, I've known you for years now . . . don't you think I would know if you were up to something?" Wendy inquired. "Besides, if I was a mind reader, I'd know that right now you were about to say something derogatory towards me like I'm a dumb hippie-bitch."

"Oh, look at me! I’m Wendy Testaburger, and I’m a know-it-all who can’t get her titties to calm down so I have to go ruin life for everyone else . . . ."Cartman sarcastically remarked. ". . . Dumb hippie bitch." He muttered the last part.

Wendy gave a triumphant smirk.

 

"Whatever, ho. You're probably used to hearing people call you that." Cartman said begrudgingly. "Look, just listen for a sec!"

"Why should I?"

"Because. . . I just might know of a way to actually help those stupid fish of yours.”

She shook her head. “The fish aren’t stupid, and no thanks. I don’t need any help. My petition is doing just fine,” she argued, turning away from him to scout out more people that she could get to sign her petition.

He moved to stand in front of her. “No one gives a shit about petitions. The mayor will take one look at it and throw it in the trash,” he replied.

“People _do_ care about petitions. The signatures on my petition indicate that,” she responded, turning to face him. “And I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that you speak for the mayor.”

“Oh really? How many signatures have you collected?”

“None of your business.”

He peered over her shoulder. “I see three signatures ending in Testaburger, one of which is yours.”

“Move!” Wendy exclaimed, pushing him away. “If you want to help so much, start collecting signatures,” she demanded.

“Look, instead of wasting time on this crap, you could have already saved the marine life, been labelled a hippy hero, and have Ms. Garrison kiss your ass when he’s grading our projects next week,” Cartman replied. “All you’ve got to do is hear me out. You know how dedicated I can be. If I say I’m going to save the fish, then I’m going to save the damn fish, no matter what it takes.”

Her eyes narrowed. “How?” she asked.

“I’ll get the city council to pass an ordinance authorizing the protection of Stark’s Pond.”

She crossed her arms. “No killing?” she asked.

“Well . . .”

“Cartman,” Wendy warned.

He rolled his eyes. “Oh fine. No killing . . . _this time_ ,” he muttered the last part.

Wendy thought it over. In truth, she really didn't need Cartman's help to save the marine life. She could very well do it herself by her own efforts. However, by the look of things, it seemed like she was going to be stuck at Stark’s Pond for a while, and a part of her was curious about what Cartman had in mind.

"Okay, fine. You have five minutes," she relented.

Cartman breathed a sigh of relief that he wouldn’t have to use Butters after all. “Finally, you use your brain,” he said.

“Four minutes,” Wendy snapped, narrowing her eyes.

“Okay, okay. Geez, ho. Take a joke,” he replied, holding his hands up in defense. He took a deep breath. “I need you to be my wife.”

Wendy blinked several times. “Excuse me?!” she said. She must not have heard him right.

“I said, ‘I need you to be my wife.’ Well, my pretend wife, and it would only be-” he shook his head. “Look. Last night, I was flipping through some channels and I saw a commercial.”

“Uh huh . . . .”Wendy said, not knowing where he was going with this.

“The commercial featured a game show host in Los Angelos who talked about this brand new live show coming out called, ‘Marriage with Love.’ It’s a show where eight married couples from the states are pitted against each other for the title of happiest married couple in the country. There’s three rounds in total. The first with eight couples, then four couples, and then two,” he explained.

“And you’re telling me this because . . . .?” She asked.

His brown eyes locked on with hers. “I want us to enter the game show,” he said. “The host said that they’re still accepting contestants for this season, but the deadline is in a couple of days, so I need a quick decision.”

“Why do _you_ want to enter this contest?”

He grinned. “Easy. The winning couple gets $50,000. I figure if we win, we can split the money 50-50, then I’ll have the money to get my DNA altered, and you can have enough money to build an indoor sanctuary around Stark’s Pond,” he said.

She narrowed her eyes. “Why exactly do you need to get your DNA altered, Cartman?”

He glared. “Never mind that. What’s important is that you agree to this, so we can get our money already.”

Wendy considered it for a moment. Finally, she replied, “How would we even get there? You said the game show takes place in Los Angelos.”

“Already covered. We’ll use my mom’s credit card,” he responded easily.

Wendy glared. “Did your mom say we can use it?”

“Does it matter?” he said.

“Yes, it matters! It’s your mom’s money!” Wendy fumed.

He rolled his eyes. “You know, I really don’t need you to bitch at me,” he said.

“I wouldn’t need to ‘bitch’ at you if you cared about someone else besides yourself for once!” She argued.

Cartman gritted his teeth. “Alright, alright. I’ve heard you already. I’ll consider it,” he said. “Just say ‘yes’ so we can get to Los Angelos.”

“No,” Wendy said.

He blinked. “No? Why the fuck not?”

“It’s stupid, and I don’t want to go,” she replied, turning away from him.

“Winning $50,000 isn’t stupid! You really think a piece of paper with a few signatures is going to make a difference?” he asked.

She faced him again, leveling him with a glare of her own. “There are many reasons why your plan is stupid, and I can list a few. First, even if I agreed to be your pretend wife or whatever, what makes you think that we, of all people, are going to win against seven other married couples who have probably been married for years when a) we’re not even married, b) I hate you, and c) we know absolutely nothing about each other, except for the fact that you’re a complete moron,” she answered. “Second, there’s no way in hell I’d ever travel _anywhere_ with you, let alone Los Angelos, even if there was a small chance I’d get money for it.”

“Okay, I admit you’re right about one thing. We hate each other. Me, personally, hating you with the intensity of a thousand burning suns,” he said.

“Ditto,” she agreed.

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn to get along. Sure, it might be a little unbearable at first, but I’m positive we can work past that,” he said. “We _both_ need that money right now and although we don’t know much about each other, besides the fact that you’re a tree-hugging hippy and a total bitch, we can take time to learn things about each other on the way to Los Angelos by asking each other questions and planning out what we’re going to say before we’re questioned.”

“I’m not a hippy, and I’m not a bitch, you prick!” she argued. “And no one in their right mind would look past the fact that we’re kids.”

“Actually, I’ve found a way around that. We can lie on the application about our age an-”

“Yeah, because that’ll explain everything,” she interjected sarcastically.

“You didn’t let me finish, ho,” Cartman said in annoyance. “We can lie on our application about our age, AND we can say that we have a condition.”

“What kind of condition?”

He smirked. “You let me handle that.”

She rolled her eyes. “But why would you choose _me_ of all people? Why not someone else?” she asserted.

He said nothing.

“ _Well_?” Wendy inquired.

“It doesn’t matter why,” he finally replied.

She sighed. “Find someone else, Cartman,” Wendy said, turning away from him.

“B-”

“Oh hi! Have you heard about the disastrous effects of pollution on Stark’s Pond?” Wendy said suddenly, walking over to a passerby.

Cartman let out an irritated groan. “Stupid bitch,” he muttered, walking away.

…

…

Later that day, Cartman walked up to Kenny’s dirty house carrying a large white box. His mother had just dropped him off. He rang the doorbell. He heard footsteps heading to the door.

The door opened, revealing Kenny.

“Hey dude. That for me?” he asked, pointing to the white box.

“No,” Cartman said, walking past him and into the house to find Stan and Kyle seated on the couch together with a few opened presents nearby.

Kenny shrugged and shut the door behind him, walking over to the couch. He knew it was pointless to expect anything from Cartman. Kyle looked up at Cartman.

“Took you long enough,” he said. “What happened? Your fat ass slow you down?”

“Stan, tell your butt-buddy I’m not interested so he’ll quit eye-raping me when my back is turned,” Cartman responded.

“I wasn’t eye-raping you!” Kyle shouted indignantly.

“Cartman, shut the fuck up,” Stan answered.

“Yeah, Cartman,” Kenny chimed in. “Only the birthday boy gets to do the eye-raping.” He smirked, eying a new playboy magazine with a naked woman on the front cover.

Cartman rolled his eyes, taking a seat next to Kenny on the couch.

Stan eyed the package Cartman was carrying. “Hey Cartman, is that the chocolate mousse cake you said your mom was going to bake?” he asked.

“Yep,” Cartman replied.

“Yeah!” all three boys said in unison, grinning at each other.

“Well then, Kenny, you open Stan’s gift and then we can eat some chocolate cake,” Kyle said.

“You read my mind,” Kenny said, opening the small Terrance and Phillip package. Inside was a fresh pair of red laced panties.

Kenny grinned, looking over at Stan. “Dude, you’re awesome! How did you know?” he asked.

“I had a hunch,” Stan laughed.

“Where did you even get those?” Kyle asked.

“Victoria Secret,” he replied simply.

“Dude, you went to Victoria Secret, bought these, and didn’t get stopped?” Kenny asked.

Stan blushed. “I told them I was buying it for my mom,” he said.

“I love you! I’ll have to remember to go there sometime and ask one of the girls for their number and say it’s for my mom?” Kenny responded. “Were they hot?”

Stan shrugged. “Kinda,” he said.

Cartman chuckled. “There’s no way the Jew would do something like that. He’s too much of a prude,” he said.

The boys looked over at him.

Kyle said, “D-dude, please don’t tell me that’s-“

“My cake! What the fuck, Cartman?!” Kenny exclaimed.

Cartman was currently licking chocolate frosting off his fingers. His mouth was covered in chocolate, and the box was empty.

“Cartman, you’re such an asshole. You can’t bring a cake to someone’s party and eat it for yourself,” Stan reasoned.

“Dude! You could have at least let me lick the box of all the frosting! I was really looking forward to that!” Kenny said.

“Why? It’s not like the cake was for any of you,” Cartman said.

“What do you mean, ‘not for any of us?’ We were the ones who told you to bring the cake to Kenny’s party, asswipe!” Kyle argued.

“Yes, Jew, you told me to bring the cake. You didn’t say I had to share the cake,” Cartman answered. “Mom baked this cake just for me. I’m tired of you guys freeloading off of me.”

“Freeloading?! All of us chipped in to buy Kenny gifts for his birthday. What did you bring, fatass, besides yourself?”

“I’m glad you asked, Kahl,” Cartman said, wiping his hands off on his pants. “I brought Kenny the greatest gift of all—his life.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Kyle asked.

Cartman grinned. “Ever heard of refeeding syndrome?”

“Refeeding what?” Stan asked, scratching his head.

“It’s a condition that applies to people who are severely malnourished,” Kyle answered. “Basically, if a malnourished person eats too much too soon, they could get really sick.”

“What Kahl here has said is correct,” Cartman said. “We all know that Kenny’s family is poor as fuck and barely has any food lying around the house.”

“It’s true,” Kenny agreed.

“Exactly,” Cartman nodded. “So it’s fair to say that Kenny finds himself starving pretty often. It’s also fair to say that he loves chocolate cake.”

“Also true,” Kenny nodded.

“By preventing him from eating any of my mom’s super-delicious chocolate mousse cake, I’m actually helping him so that he wouldn’t be tempted to eat too much too soon, and thus, destroy all his insides. Hence, I am saving Kenny’s life,” Cartman explained.

He continued. “In addition to that, I am also saving _your_ life, Jew, and the hippy over there,” he said. “Jew, you’re diabetic. Too much of my mom’s chocolate cake could send you to a very sugary grave. And Stan-” he stopped, thinking it over. “Well, Stan can just suck my balls.”

“Hey! What’d I do?!” Stan argued.

“Well, gee Stan, I _would_ have considered giving you some of my ultra-delicious chocolate cake, if not for that comment you made earlier about no one inviting me over without my mom’s cake,” Cartman remarked.

“Dude,” Stan said.

“So, in conclusion,” Cartman said. “I think we have established that I am not only a totally kewl and awesome person, but also that you three _owe_ me for saving your lives.”

“We don’t owe you anything, Cartman,” Kyle said. “Stop being such an asshole.”

“My, my, sounds like someone’s an ungrateful bitch,” Cartman commented.

“I’m not being ungrateful!” Kyle argued. You’re just being a douche because had you really wanted to ‘save our lives,’ you would have just not brought any cake with you to begin with.”

He continued. “But instead, being the super douche that you are, you not only decide to bring the chocolate cake to Kenny’s _birthday_ party, fully aware that he loves cake, you decide to eat it in front of him, and rub it in all of our faces about how delicious your mom’s cake is, and then act like you’re doing us a big favor by eating it. So I repeat. Douche.”

“He’s got a point,” Stan said. “You are acting pretty douche-like.”

Cartman rolled his eyes. “Pfft. Whatever. Screw you guys, I’m going home,” he said, hopping off the couch and proceeding to the door.

“Screw you, Cartman! You always run anyways!” Kyle called after him.

Cartman slammed the door.

Kenny looked over at Stan and Kyle. “So . . . you guys want to play Black Ops in my room?” he asked.

“Yep!” Stan said.

“Sounds good,” Kyle replied.

The three boys headed up the staircase.

…

…

On Friday, Cartman spotted Wendy heading to the library after lunch. Not fazed by their last encounter and not surely one to back down on a fight, Cartman followed after her, intent on getting Wendy to change her mind about being on the game show with him.

Wendy was in the middle of skimming through a book at the back of the library, when Cartman approached her from behind.

“’Sup, ho,” Cartman greeted.

Wendy jumped, not expecting him. She turned around and Cartman could just see the displeasure in her face upon realizing it was just him.

“Ugh. What do you want, Cartman? I already said no,” She said.

"Come on, ho. This is just acting. Haven't you ever wanted to star in a play?" he asked.

"Not when Romeo is a gargoyle," Wendy replied, walking away from him with a book in hand.

Cartman followed her, rolling his eyes. "Ha ha. Funny," He said. "I happen to know that gargoyles are so kewl, they fly and protect people at night."

Wendy checked out her book and turned around to face him. "Oh, my mistake," she answered, "I meant to say you're more like a walrus because you're way too lazy and fat to do anything."

Cartman paused. "The fuck is a walrus?" He asked.

"Google it," Wendy said, walking out of the library.

…

…

In the girl’s bathroom, Wendy and Bebe were conversing.

“Bebe, I don’t know what to do. This is the second time that Cartman has bothered me about this stupid game show thing. I already told him no, and he just won’t listen,” Wendy complained.

Bebe checked herself over in the mirror, and then turned to face her. “What’s the big deal? Just ignore him, and he’ll eventually go away. That’s what I always do,” she said.

“That’ll just encourage him! You know how he is. Once Cartman’s set on something, he never gives up,” Wendy argued.

“Yeah? Well, neither do you,” Bebe stated.

Wendy stopped. “That’s true . . . .” she agreed.

Bebe smiled reassuringly. “Listen, Wends. Don’t let fatboy get to you. If you don’t play his game, he’ll eventually back off. He’s like a fire that feeds off of energy. The less energy you expend on him, the fewer times he’ll speak with you until he’s completely gone.”

Wendy nodded. “You always know the right thing to say, Bebe.”

“Tell that to the math teacher,” Bebe said, grinning.

…

…

After PE, Wendy was alone in the girl’s locker room, packing up her gym bag. She had told her friends to go on ahead of her to their lockers to pack up their stuff for the day. She was just about to head out of the locker room, when she heard the door open.

“Bebe?” she asked from around the lockers.

“Guess again,” Cartman answered, a smug grin on his face. On his back was a blue backpack.

Wendy frowned. “I said, no, Cartman. Please don’t make me file a restraining order against you,” she said, trying to walk around him. He blocked her. “Move. You can’t keep me in here.”

“First,” Cartman said, ignoring her. “I wanted to tell you that I googled ‘walrus’ earlier today, and I just have one thing to say: fuck you.”

Wendy smirked. “Is that all?” she asked.

“Second,” Cartman said. “I didn’t want it to have to come to this, but you left me no choice.” He let out a big sigh, removing his backpack from his back and taking out a manila envelope. “In my hands, I hold some incriminating evidence of you participating in some rather unorthodox things.”

Wendy crossed her arms. “Fake,” she said. There was no way that Cartman had anything. She was smart enough to cover her tracks with anything that would remotely put her in a bad light. Cartman was bluffing.

Cartman’s grin widened in a way that sent shivers down Wendy’s spine. “Oh no, ho. I can personally attest to the fact that the photos contained in this envelope are 100 percent genuine.”

She laughed. “Fine, let’s see these pictures of yours if it will make me get out of here faster,” she said.

He smirked, handing them over to her.

As she opened the envelope, Cartman commented, “Oh, and rest assured, I have multiple copies of the photos stored on my computer, just in case you thought that destroying these photos would erase any evidence.”

Wendy looked closely at the incriminating evidence. Her eyes widened.

“Where did you get these?” she asked, fear now evident in her tone.

"I have my sources."

Wendy raised an eyebrow. "What kind of sources?"

He shook his head. "Doesn't matter. I have the photos now, don't I?" He said, knowing full well that he had Butters take the photos for him. “Question is, does this change your mind about the game show?”

Wendy’s eyes narrowed, focusing on the confident grin Cartman was sporting. How she wished she could wipe that smirk right off his face. She tucked the photos back in the envelope, handing it back to him.

She levelled him with a glare. "So, basically, you're blackmailing me into cheating on Stan with you by pretending to be your wife after I've cheated on Stan only once," she replied, ignoring his question.

Cartman nodded. "Right, but that's based on your definition of cheating. My definition, however, is different," he said. "I believe that it's only cheating if you kiss someone and it actually means something," he explained.

He continued. "By kissing me, you'd only be doing what actors do every day. After all, many of them have wives or husbands at home, but they kiss another person for the sake of playing the part in a movie."

"So you wouldn't actually be cheating on Stan with me as you did before. You'd be merely playing the part. Do you see what I am saying now?" He asked.

Wendy shook her head. "That's how a lot of cheating goes on in Hollywood though. It starts out innocent enough with the kissing in the movies, but more often than not, the actors or actresses end up filing for divorce from their partners because the kissing starts meaning something later." she said.

"Right, but that won't happen with us. I mean, I don't date hippies and you aren't good enough to be with this hot body," he said.

She frowned. "Um, I think you meant, I would never want to be caught anywhere within two centimeters of you. Kissing you would be like kissing a pile of crap that's been in the sewer for days, no years!"

He glared. "And kissing you would be like drinking vomit that came out of a prostitute with herpes and all sorts of diseases."

She smirked. "I thought you already taste that when you kiss your mom."

"Ay! I thought you already taste crap in the sewer when you kiss Stan."

"Leave Stan out of this!" Wendy yelled. "And if kissing me is so bad, why not get another person to do this? Don’t think I’ve forgotten that you avoided this question the other day."

"Because," Cartman said.

"Because _why_ , Cartman?” she pressed. “Because you've already asked everyone else and they all said, 'no?’"

Cartman grew quiet. "What's it to you anyways?"

Wendy grinned triumphantly. "So I was right," she stated.

"Look,” Cartman said. “You don't love me, and I definitely as hell don't love you. So there's no way this could be classified as cheating now or ever. Now are we going to do this or not?"

"No!" Wendy said. "Have you been listening to me at all? I said, I wouldn't be caught anywhere near you and kissing you would be a nightmare."

He frowned. "Fine, then I guess I'll just be taking these pictures right hyeh and-"

"You're wasting your time,” she interjected. “Stan will still love me even if you show those pictures to him."

He smirked. "That's where you're wrong, ho. You see, he believes in your definition of cheating. Think about it. How do you think he'll react when he sees you out kissing these guys that aren't him?" He said. "Let me rephrase it, how would you react if you saw Stan kissing a bunch of other hoes that weren't you?"

She didn't answer.

Cartman continued. "I think, no, I know he'd freak for sure if he saw those photos. I've known Stan for years and I know he'd revert back into that emo pussy he was a couple of years ago."

"If you don't believe me," Cartman remarked. "Go and tell him yourself. That way you'll know for sure how he'd react. But just remember, you could have been $25,000 richer and kept this secret to yourself."

"Up yours, fatass." Wendy said, now determined. "I'm going to tell Stan right now."

"Go right ahead," Cartman said, moving aside. "See you in fifteen at the library."

He laughed when Wendy flipped him off before storming past him and out the door.

…

…

Stan and Kyle were conversing with each other when Wendy approached them.

"Hi Stan," Wendy greeted in a soft tone.

Stan blinked, surprised to see her. "Oh. Hey Wendy. What's up?" he asked.

Wendy looked down and bit her lip. Should she tell him?

She looked up and placed a hand on Stan's shoulder, her gaze set on his. “Look, Stan. You know that no matter what happens, I'll always love you, right?" she questioned.

Stan shifted uncomfortably. "Uh . . . yeah?” he replied, raising an eyebrow. Then he thought the worst. "Oh God! You're not breaking up with me, are you?" He exclaimed in panic.

Wendy gave a small smile, shaking her head. "No, Stan. I'm not breaking up with you,” she assured.

Stan let out a deep sigh. "Oh. Well that's good," he said. "Then, what's up?"

"It's just . . . ." Wendy started hesitantly, then thought better. She shook her head. "It's nothing. I just wanted to say, have a great weekend, Stan."

"Uh, ok. You too." Stan said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

Wendy leaned in and gave him a small peck on the cheek before continuing her way down the hallway.

"Dude, what the heck was that about?" Kyle asked in confusion.

"I don't know dude. All of a sudden, Wendy's been acting differently. Earlier, I spotted her talking with Cartman at the library. You think her strange behavior has anything to do with Cartman?" Stan asked.

Kyle shook his head. "No way dude. I just talked to him the other day and he's been all obsessed about getting his mom to pretend that he’s Johnny Depp’s son, so he can own a million dollars."

Stan blinked. "Johnny Depp? Really?"

"Yeah, I keep telling him it'll never happen, but as always, his head's too far up his ass to listen," he answered.

Stan snickered. "Yeah, especially since his head takes up half of it."

Kyle laughed. “Good one, dude.”

…

…

Wendy wandered into the library, not at all surprised to find Cartman there. Anticipating that she might be staying at the school a little longer than expected, she texted her friends to let them know they didn’t have to wait on her. Wendy moved to take a seat at the table across from him. As usual, Cartman had to rub it in.

"Couldn't tell him, ho?" Cartman asked casually. "Would you like me to do the honor? Which one of these do you think Stan will like better?"

He held up a photo of her kissing Token at a party. "Snapshot A?"

He held up another one of her making out with Clyde at the party. "Snapshot B?"

He smirked. "Or my favorite, snapshot C?" The picture showed Wendy wearing a skimpy outfit and flirting with guys at Raisins.

 

She sighed. "Fine . . . you win, fatass. Let's just get this over with already," she said, her face flushed in embarrassment.

Cartman nodded. "You made a wise choice, ho. Wouldn't want your boyfriend to see how much of a slut you really are," He said, putting away the evidence.

"I'm not a slut, fatass. And stop calling me a ho! I just made a few bad choices, and I already feel bad about them, so you can stop trying to make me feel worse," Wendy replied in exasperation.

"Ay, I'm just calling it as I see it. I didn't make you kiss Clyde and Token. And I certainly didn't make you dress up like a pole dancer and entertain guys."

"It was a summer job, and I needed the money!" She argued.

"Sounds like a ho bag to me."

"Ugh!" Wendy yelled in frustration. "Do you want me to help you or don't you?" She asked.

"I think a better question is, 'do you want me to keep tolerating your whiny voice?' And you're already getting something out of it so you can quit your bitching, ho!"

Wendy was infuriated. Why did these things have to happen to her? She really regretted ever letting Bebe talk her into going to Clyde and Token's party. She remembered Bebe telling her to loosen up a little and when she did . . . she found she didn't want to stop. Truth was, she was getting kind of bored of Stan. Sure, he was a nice guy and handsome and sensible, but he lacked passion and he always puked on her anytime they tried to kiss. Plus, he barely ever hung out with her. She wasn't trying to justify her actions, but it was just . . . it felt so good at the time to be in the wrong. Only now, when Cartman was taking advantage of it, she didn't feel so great afterwards.

She just couldn't tell Stan. It was hard enough that she feels like crap for cheating on him. It's not like she ever wanted to hurt him, but to just face him after cheating on him multiple guys . . . how was she supposed to do that? She couldn't. She sighed, putting her face in her arms.

Cartman turned around and noted Wendy's head in her arms. He took a deep breath and sat down in the chair next to her. He gently placed a hand on her arm to make her aware of his presence.

Wendy groaned. "What now?" She hissed, her voice muffled.

"Wendy . . . I can see you're having a rough time."

"You think?!" She scoffed, finally looking up. Cartman held her gaze.

She froze when she saw the sincerity in his honey brown eyes, suddenly unable to keep her eyes off them.

_'Wait, did he just use my name?'_ She realized in shock.

Cartman continued, "Yes, Wendy." He affirmed, maintaining eye contact. "And I just want to let you know that I really, really don't care. So get that sand out of your va-jay-jay and shut up," He finished, and suddenly, the moment was broken.

He rose back up from his seat.

Wendy was stunned. What on earth had she been thinking just now? What possessed her to think that Cartman might actually care? She got up from her seat.

"You know what? Forget it. I quit. I'm done listening to you order me around. That isn't what I signed up for," She said, storming off.

Cartman blinked, not expecting that. "You can't just quit!"

Wendy turned around briefly. "Watch me." And then continued towards the door.

Cartman immediately met her at the door. Alright, alright already! I'm sorry, geez ho! No need to turn this into a dramatic scene."

"What, so now you care?" Wendy asked.

"As if ho!" Cartman said, averting his eyes.

"Then I'm leaving," Wendy said, trying to push past him.

"No! You can't!" Cartman said, blocking the door.

"Yeah, no kidding. Your fatass is in the way,” she remarked.

"Alright fine. I care. Satisfied?" Cartman admitted.

"Almost," Wendy replied. She grabbed the collar of his shirt, leaning in close.

"Let's just get something straight, fatboy. You need me just as much as I need you so if this thing is going work between us, you better not say anything that is going to make me rethink helping you. Got it?" She said, firmly.

Cartman didn't say anything, so she continued.

"I'm fucking serious, fatass. There's nothing stopping me from kicking your ass right now and breaking everything you own. So you'd be wise to show some form of acknowledgement before I rip out whatever little balls you have."

Cartman held up his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay," he said.

"And that includes calling me a 'ho' or 'hippie bitch,’ Eric."

Cartman was quiet for a moment. “Fine . . .” he said.

"Good," Wendy smiled, relinquishing his shirt. "Nice doing business with you." She said, walking back to her seat.

Cartman grumbled something about women and their PMSing.

“Now,” Wendy said, getting his attention. "If we're really doing this, I'm going to need a time frame. Exactly how long is this thing going to last?"

“The interview for contestants begins tomorrow evening, call backs are Monday, and the show lasts until Wednesday, when they announce the winner,” he answered.

“So four days, assuming that we make it to the final round,” Wendy said. “We need to leave first thing tomorrow.”

Cartman grinned. “Already booked the tickets,” he said.

She blinked. “What? How could you, when I just-” her eyes widened in realization. “You presumptuous asshole! You just assumed I’d eventually agree, didn’t you?”

His grin grew. “Didn’t you?” he asked.

She frowned, standing up. “Well, it seems to me that you’ve already got the details worked out. I can see this husband-wife relationship turning out well,” she said in sarcasm. “What time does boarding start tomorrow?”

“9:30 a.m.,” he said. “Meet me at my house at 8 a.m., and I’ll get my mom to drive us to the airport.”

Her eyes narrowed. “She doesn’t even know about this!”

“She doesn’t have to,” Cartman argued. “Just trust me.”

“No chance,” Wendy said. “Look, I’ll be at your house by 8 a.m.” With that, Wendy left the library.

Cartman grinned. He could smell that money already.


	3. Chapter 3

…

Later that night, Cartman was packing his bags in preparation for his and Wendy's big trip the next day. He decided to pack light with only the essentials to save time by not having to go to baggage claim at the airport. After bribing Wendy earlier, he stopped by Craig's house and picked up a couple of fake ids under aliases. It could never hurt to be too cautious, just in case they needed verification of their ages. He'd even taken the liberty of matching the name on their audition applications with the aliases on the fake ids. From now on, he would go by Jo Momma Crotch and Wendy, Hippy Dippy Crotch. He smiled to himself. The names were a stroke a pure genius. His best yet, actually. He noted that Craig did give him an odd look, however, as he was making them. Pfft. Probably just jealous he hadn't thought of it first. He continued packing his bags until he felt his cellphone vibrate in his pocket coupled with Lady Gaga singing, "Bad Romance."

He reached into his pocket and grabbed his green cellphone, checking the screen. Luminous green orbs stared back at him as a photo of a familiar red-haired boy flashed across the screen with Kyle's number attached. He rolled his eyes, putting the cellphone back into his pocket. He'd let it go to voicemail. That Jew wasn't worth his time. He continued packing.

Fifteen minutes later, he heard his mother's voice from downstairs.

"Poopsiekins! Time for bed!"

He rolled his eyes. Fuck, I hate that nickname.

He shut his suitcase with a little more force than he originally intended before heading over to his nightstand. He set his alarm clock to 6:30 a.m. Since Wendy was planning to arrive at his house by 8 a.m., that would give him more than enough time to get dressed and finish making all the necessary preparations. He took out his cellphone once more seeing three text messages from Kyle and two voicemails. He didn't bother with the voicemails, but he did scroll through the texts.

Goshdamnit, fatass. Answer your phone.

You're not fucking making me do all the work on this project.

I'm coming to your house tomorrow. If you bail, I'll tell your mom what really happened to the last guy she dated. 

Cartman stared at the last text message. The corner of his lips turned upwards. Touché. He never knew the Jew had it in him to use blackmail against him. Then, he felt a wave of annoyance. He should've known better than to trust that asshole Kenny with any of his secrets.

Unfortunately for Kyle, however, Cartman was always one step ahead. He would make sure his mom continued to believe that Alan Jenkins was still cruising overseas for an indefinite period of time. She would never know that Alan's cruise ship was intercepted by Somalian pirates a few weeks ago. Cartman may or may not have anonymously tipped to the pirates that there was enormous booty onboard the ship and that a certain man by the name of Alan Jenkins was responsible for murdering their fellow Somalian comrades. And Cartman may or may not have been a part of the same pirate crew that repeatedly shot cannons at the Alan until he died a gruesome death. And Cartman may or may not have laughed once or twice and snapped photos of said event. All speculation, of course. He considered it karma for Alan eating the last chicken pot pie he had been saving. And you do not ever mess with a man's chicken pot pie.

He closed his phone, putting it on the charger by his nightstand. He'd worry about Kyle later. Besides, it was much more amusing to mess with Kyle when he was angry. He wasn't entirely sure why.

He climbed into bed, turning off his bedside lamp. He slowly closed his eyes. Tomorrow he'd be one step closer to his ten million.

…

 

…

Cartman awoke, startled, to the blaring sound of "Funky Town" on his alarm clock. He reached over, shutting it off. Normally, he'd fancy hitting the snooze button, but there was no time for that. This was about money, and he never joked when it came to money. He sat up in bed, giving a big stretch. He yawned, blinking away some crust underneath his eyelids. Today was the big day.

…

A half an hour later, he was all dressed and ready to leave. He even made sure to put on his red travelling cap. He headed into the kitchen, grabbing a wooden chair from the table. He pushed it over to the refrigerator. Then, he climbed onto it, setting his sights on a large, metallic can marked with the words, "Emergency Funds" on top of the refrigerator. He reached for it, grabbing the can carefully and slowly lowering himself off the chair. He set the can on the table and reached inside the can, revealing a red master card and a blue visa. He grinned, placing the two cards in his pocket. With these funds, he would be able to pay for any expense on their trip. He reached into another pocket and pulled out two hotel room cards, one colored in red marker with black ink words stating, "master card," and the other, colored in blue marker with black ink words stating "visa." He placed the two counterfeits inside the can and proceeded to put the can on the top of the refrigerator. He moved the chair back to its original position underneath the table. He surveyed the kitchen table and found a large package filled with snacky cakes. He emptied all the cakes into a small yellow bag he carried along and zipped up his bag. He checked the time on his phone. 7:45 a.m. Fifteen minutes before Wendy arrived.

He headed upstairs to his mother's bedroom. Once in the bedroom, he shook his mother awake lightly.

"Mom . . . mom, wake up," he said.

Liane shifted, opening her eyes slightly. She yawned, rubbing at her eyes.

"Mmm? What is it, sweetie?" she asked.

"Mom, I need you to drive me and a friend to the airport today. Get dressed, she'll be here soon," he replied.

She craned her head to look at the time. It was ten minutes before eight. She yawned again, sitting up.

"I'm afraid I'm not quite understanding, sweetie. Where are you going? Why are you leaving so early? Does your friend's parents know about this? How will you even pay for the flight?"

Cartman's eye twitched in irritation. "Mom, come on. That's too many questions at once. I'll fill you in on the details in the car."

She sighed before giving a warm smile. "Oh alright, poopsiekins. I'll be down in just a moment," she responded, getting out of bed.

Satisfied, Cartman went downstairs and waited for Wendy to arrive. Ten minutes later, the doorbell rang.

Not waiting for his mom, Cartman waddled to the door and opened it, revealing Wendy standing in the midst of five large suitcases.

"You're late," he said.

She frowned. "Excuse me. Do you know how long it took me to lug all these suitcases over here by myself? I had to make two trips!" she exclaimed. "It's already bad enough my parents don't even know I'm here to begin with, it's also a Saturday. You're lucky I came at all."

"Well, who the fuck told you to bring so many bags in the first place? We're not staying for the year!"

"What else was I supposed to do? I've never even been to California before, so I had no idea what to pack. And I don't recall you ever lending out any suggestions on what I'm supposed to wear as a married woman. So now, my parents will probably think I moved out, all thanks to you." Wendy explained.

He frowned. "Ay! Don't blame this on me! I didn't tell you to pack your entire closet!" Cartman argued.

Wendy pushed him aside, stepping into the house.

"Ay!" he yelled.

"The payoff better be good, Cartman, or I swear I'm going to kick your ass," she said, walking over to the couch.

"Listen, we're not taking all those fucking bags. We don't have the space."

"Then get rid of some of your bags," she answered.

"Hell no. My bags have important documentation in them."

"What does that have to do with anything? You don't need a bag to carry documentation," she argued.

"Look," Cartman replied. "We're not getting rid of any of my bags. I packed the lightest. I planned this whole thing, so logically, I should get to keep my bags. Unlike you, I need all the stuff in my bag."

"Who says I don't need all the stuff in my bag?"

"You did."

"No, I didn't. I said I didn't know what to bring. Thus, I brought what I thought I needed."

"Wendy, you don't need all that stuff."

"You don't know that. You didn't see all the stuff in my bags."

"Nor am I going to because you're not bringing all of that stuff."

Wendy's eyes flashed in anger. "Yes, I am."

"No, you aren't."

She crossed her arms. "Either all of my bags are going, or I'm leaving."

Cartman stared her down with intense eyes. However, Wendy was not intimidated. She glared right back at him, her blue eyes matching his intensity. Neither said a word for several moments.

Then, finally, Cartman heaved out a long sigh. He let his palm run down his face. "Goshdamnit," he mumbled. Wendy vaguely noted that Stan and Cartman had similar gestures when dealing with stress.

"Okay, fine. We'll find a way to make it work with all the bags," Cartman said.

She gave a victorious smirk. "I knew you'd see things my way."

Cartman resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Whatever, ho."

"Cartman."

He gave her an annoyed look. "What now," he snarled.

"Apologize."

His face twisted in confusion. "What for?"

"Just now. You called me a 'ho.'"

This seemed to amuse him. "I don't apologize for telling the truth."

She frowned. "You will if you want me to participate in this," she demanded, choosing to ignore his insult.

His smile faded. "That's not the way this works," he protested.

She stood up, walking to the door. "Fine then. Have it your way. Later Cart-"

"Sorry."

She blinked, stopping in her tracks. "Hm? What was that?" she asked, turning back to face him.

Cartman averted his eyes, gritting his teeth. "I said, sorry."

A small grin worked its way to her face. "For what?" she asked.

His honey eyes shot to hers. "Wendy."

She sighed. She supposed that was all she was going to get out of him. "Oh fine. Good enough. As long as you remember the terms we agreed to in the library, we won't have any problems. Specifically, no name calling," she asserted, giving him a meaningful look.

Cartman said nothing. It didn't take a genius to know that he wasn't exactly thrilled with their particular arrangement. She guessed that it unnerved him to see another person taking control for once. The truth of the matter was, for whatever reason, he needed her, and she knew that very well. She would be a fool not to exploit that fact to him. However, it wouldn't do either of them any favors if they continued arguing like this. She decided to play nice.

"Look," she began in a nicer tone, "the same goes for me, okay? I promise not to call you anything that alludes to you being fat so long as you keep your end of the bargain."

"And besides," she reasoned, "It's been what? Five minutes since I've gotten here and we've been doing nothing but fighting, and over silly things, for that matter. If we keep acting this way, no one's going to believe we're married. If we're going to be successful in this, we're going to have to try harder to work together." She offered a hand out to him. "Truce?"

He looked at the offered hand and frowned, not making any attempt to reach for her hand. Just when she thought she was going to have to use her offered hand to slap some sense into him, he slowly reached out and grabbed it.

"Truce," he muttered.

Wendy gave a gentle smile. "There. It's settled," she said, before they both let go.

Just then, Liane Cartman approached them from the staircase. "Oh my," she said in mild shock. "I had no idea my little poopsiekins made friends with his bully."

Wendy blinked. "Bully?" she asked, momentarily confused. Her eyes widened. She couldn't mean that time Cartman came over my house with his mom and complained about me bullying, could she? She thought.

She frowned. That was it, wasn't it? Then, she remembered her truce with Cartman. Don't get angry. Cartman's mother doesn't know what she's saying. "It's a pleasure to see you again, Ms. Cartman," she responded sweetly.

Liane blinked. Then, she smiled back. "It's a pleasure to see you too, dear. Do your parents know that you're here?"

"Of course," Wendy lied. "I told them that Eric and I are going on a short trip to California to-"

"—observe the harmful effects that pot-smoking hippies cause to our global atmosphere," Cartman chimed in. "You see, mom, Wendy and I are partners for an environmental project due on Tuesday on global warming. So, I brilliantly thought, what better way to best present what is currently happening to our environment than to get first-hand experience of the extensive pollution in California and report it to our fellow classmates."

Liane ate it all up. "Oh, sweetie. That sounds like a wonderful idea," she replied enthusiastically.

Wendy rolled her eyes. Oh brother. There goes Cartman tooting his own horn again.

Liane looked at her in concern. "Wendy, dear. Have you eaten anything?"

Her eyebrows rose. Come to think of it, she was getting a little hungry. However, before she could respond, Cartman cut in.

"Mom, we don't have time for that. The plane's going to be leaving soon," he said. "I packed some food in my bag for later."

"Well, alright," Liane said. With that, she grabbed her car keys and began dragging a couple of Wendy's bags to the car.

"Oh, it's okay. I've got it, Ms. Cartman," Wendy said, moving to help Liane with the bags.

Cartman sat back on the couch, turning on Terrance and Phillip. When his mom was done with helping Wendy, he'd be sure to remind her about his bags upstairs.

…

 

…

In the car, Cartman was fuming at having to sit crowded in the back with all the bags. He could barely move. Goshdamnit, he thought with a grumble.

Worse than that, he had to deal with twenty minutes of his mother and Wendy chattering on about each other's lives and what their plans were for the future. It was pure torture. He'd much rather hang out with Butters.

Needless to say, he was very happy when they arrived at the airport under "departures." He hurriedly grabbed his two carry-on bags—a backpack and a shoulder bag—as Wendy and his mother struggled to take all of Wendy's bags out of the car.

Wendy stared at him. "Well," she said.

He raised an eyebrow. "Well what."

"Well, aren't you going to help me?" she asked

It took few moments for her words to sink in. Then, he burst out laughing. And laughing. And laughing some more.

Wendy narrowed her eyes. She turned around, eying Liane before giving a devilish smile. She tapped Liane's shoulders. "Ms. Cartman. Thank you so much for paying for our trip. Cartman told me you had this all covered. I really appreciate it," she stated sweetly.

Cartman's mouth fell open at his mother's baffled look. "There must be some mistake. I never told Eric that I would pay for any trip. Why, I didn't even know about this trip until today," Liane responded.

Wendy feigned surprise. "What? But Eric showed me the already-purchased tickets yesterday," she replied.

His mother turned to face him. "What is this all about, sweetie?" she asked. Her face was beginning to morph its way into a frown.

He eyed Wendy's self-satisfied grin. Stupid bitch. He could feel his chance of owning ten million dollars slipping away. He had to act fast.

He rubbed at his eyes a little to get them a little watery. "I-I just wanted to impress my new friend, mommy," he began. "Last week, I pawned off a few of my games to earn some money, and I used all the money from my savings to buy these plane tickets. I didn't want Wendy to know that it took so much to get the plane tickets, and I just wanted Wendy to believe we had a lot of money." He looked at his mother with sad eyes. "I'm sorry. P-please don't be mad, momma."

Liane placed a hand over her heart. "Oh Eric," she said, bending down to wrap her arms around him in a hug. "I didn't know. I'm so sorry. Mommy's not mad. Don't worry, mommy will buy you some more games when we get home."

Cartman grinned. "Well, the thing is, mommy. I don't have any money for hotel expenses or food now that I've spent all my money."

"Oh yes, of course, Eric. I'll pay for anything you need," she said. From behind Liane's back, Cartman caught Wendy's eyes. He stuck his tongue out at her.

Her face reddened in rage before she rolled her eyes, looking away. Cartman gave a triumphant smirk at her reaction.

Liane let go, standing up. She turned to Wendy. "I apologize for the misunderstanding. It seems my little sugar bear has a tiny crush on you," she said, smiling.

At that, Wendy and Cartman blinked.

"Goshdamnit mom I do not—"he cleared his throat. "Err, I mean, mommy! You've got it all wrong!"

Wendy tried not to laugh. "I understand, Ms. Cartman. No need to apologize," she said.

Cartman grit his teeth, muttering curses under his breath. Together, the three headed into check-in their bags.

…

 

…

The airplane that they boarded was rather small with only about ten other people on the plane. On the airplane, Cartman and Wendy avoided talking to each other. Wendy did, however, threaten his balls if he didn't give up the window seat, so he was rather annoyed at having to comply.

He was also infuriated at Wendy's attempt to put him on the spot with his mother. It was a sneaky move and it reminded him why he could never trust hippies. Before leaving, his mother had given him a few hundred dollar bills to split between the two of them, which wasn't that much considering that they were going to a rather expensive state. However, with the credit cards he "borrowed" from his mother's emergency funds, he believed he could manage. Moreover, he also made sure to tell his mother what happened to her old boyfriend, just in case Kyle tried to beat him to it. He altered the details of Alan's death, of course. He merely played the role of a concerned son not wanting his mom to be heartbroken. So, he may have pulled his mother aside and mentioned to her that Kyle was the one who killed her boyfriend. Of course, his mother didn't believe him first, thinking that Kyle was such a good boy who would never do such a thing. After all, what would be Kyle's motivation?

But that was before he told her that Kyle, with all his smarts, did some in-depth research and found out that Alan, her boyfriend, was a native Somalian. He claimed that Kyle found out after her boyfriend's repeated attempts at trying to steal his Jew gold. His mother had appeared shocked at the news, and that's when he conveniently reminded her that Kyle's brother had been kidnapped by Somalian pirates a little while back and he wanted revenge. So, he told her, in the heat of the moment, when Alan was trying for Kyle's gold, Kyle stuck Alan over the head with a lamp and stabbed him forty-seven times. Then, he burned the body and the weapon. It was the perfect crime, he told her. Everyone would think that sweet Kyle was only acting in self-defense, if he was ever found out. No one would know his true motivation. Cartman told her that Kyle was so worried about someone finding out that he told his super-cool best friend, Cartman, about it and begged him to help him. Cartman, too awesome and noble to leave his buddy hanging, decided to help conjure up a plan to protect his friend.

Thus, he told his mother, he wrote the letter in her boyfriend's writing saying that he had to go overseas for an indefinite period of time. He could see the realization dawn in his mother's eyes so he apologized and comforted her, but secretly happy that he had done such a great job framing Kyle. Moreover, he also conveniently told her that Kyle would be stopping over their house later today with books, claiming that he and Cartman were partners. When, in reality, Cartman told her, Kyle was still anxious about the killing and Cartman was helping him through it. He made sure to swear his mother to secrecy, however. He told her that Kyle was still so young and had a bright future ahead of him. He said that if she told anyone, Kyle's life might be ruined, and even her own son for only doing the noble thing by helping out a friend. His mother had tearfully agreed and went on her way back home. Of course, Wendy looked at him suspiciously when she caught a glimpse of his mother in tears and saw him grinning, but he shrugged. Whatever. That was her problem.

Cartman pulled out the latest Sky Mall magazine from the seat compartment in front of him, casually flipping through the pages. However, he couldn't help but overhear a couple's conversation in front of them.

The couple consisted of a young dark-haired Hispanic woman and an athletic-looking man with blonde hair. They were chatting enthusiastically about the same competition he and Wendy were about to enter. He narrowed his eyes. They almost looked . . . too happy. Almost like winners.

"What the hell are you looking at?" a girl's voice said from beside him.

He blinked, his line of concentration broken. "What?"

Wendy frowned. "You better not be thinking about doing something horrible, Cartman. We haven't even gotten to California yet."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he responded, turning his attention back the speakers in his Sky Mall magazine.

"My ass," she whispered. "I saw the look on your face like you were plotting to do something evil to that couple in front of us. Leave them alone."

He rolled his eyes, closing his magazine. "Wendy, you're really going to have to work on your trust issues if you want this marriage to work," he replied.

"Oh don't even, Cartman," Wendy said. "I know you better than that."

He stood up. "I'm going to the bathroom," he said, walking off. He could hear the hiss in Wendy's voice after him.

"The bathroom's the other way."

He ignored her, heading up the aisle towards the cockpit. He had better things to deal with—like preventing that young couple from entering the competition.

…

 

…

SLAP!

"Wendy, what the fuck?!" Cartman yelled, rubbing his red cheek.

"That's for breaking your fucking promise. You said you wouldn't kill anyone!" Wendy asserted.

He frowned. "I didn't kill anyone. Gravity killed them," he corrected. "And it reduced the competition. To think you'd be happy."

"Happy?!" she exclaimed. She gave a short laugh. "You think I'd be happy about this?!" She pointed to the burning airplane behind them in the distance. They were currently in the ocean, each clutching onto the life preservers that they brought with them from the plane. They were a total of five other people floating with them. Noticeably, the young couple wasn't among them.

"Ay! I never said it was going to be perfect," he argued.

"You pushed the pilot out of the airplane without a parachute!" she shrieked.

"He wasn't listening to me," he said.

"You locked the co-pilot in the bathroom. No one was flying the plane."

"We're alive."

"We barely made it. Thank God there were parachutes."

He rolled his eyes. "Of course there were parachutes."

"Did you know that there weren't enough parachutes?"

"How the fuck would I know that?"

"Maybe you should've thought of that before you pushed the pilot off the plane. What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that I want a divorce," he answered.

She let out a scream, splashing him with water.

"Ay, woman! Calm your tits!" he said, blocking his face.

The sound of horns distracted them. They saw two rescue boats heading towards them from the California coastline.

…

 

…

"Well, that took forever," Wendy said, walking over to the queen-sized bed in the hotel room closest to the window and launching herself on it. "You really didn't have to flip those people off. You could've just said no to the pictures."

"Those reporters didn't take 'no' for an answer. I saw one of them try to sneak in a picture of us," Cartman replied, setting down his things. "Absolutely no one can recognize us."

She groaned. "I know that, okay?" she said. "I just thought it couldn't hurt to be a little nicer. Was it really necessary to give them a full shot of your ass when you mooned them?"

He grinned, sitting down on the bed closest to the door. "Yes. Assholes deserve assholes," he replied.

Wendy shook her head. Cartman would never change. "So, what now?" she asked.

"We prepare," he answered, reaching into his black bag and grabbing a small zip-lock package. "Here, I've got something for you."

Wendy blinked, not having expected Cartman to get her anything. Maybe he'd gotten her something to wear for the marriage game show. She perked up at the idea, sitting up. That was probably it! "Ooh! Is it new shoes?! I've been wanting a new pair for the longest!" she gushed, hoping he knew her taste in shoes.

Cartman stared at her with half-lidded eyes. "Wendy. Does it look like I'm made of money?"

"Wasn't that what your mom's extra money was for?" she asked.

He rolled his eyes. "You wish I would spend any money on your crusty feet," he replied.

"Crusty?" she exclaimed. "My feet aren't crusty! I'll have you know that I get pedicures weekly."

He shivered. "I actually feel sorry for the people who have to touch them."

"Don't piss me off, Cartman. I'm not afraid to come over there."

"I'm shaking."

She frowned, jumping out of the bed and storming towards him.

His eyes widened. "W-Wendy?" he asked, looking at the girl with her teeth clenched moving towards him. He gulped backing away slowly. "What are you—okay, now you're scaring me . . . Wendy! Wendy!" His back hit the wall. He threw his hands up in surrender. "Okay, okay!"

Wendy raised an arm, unleashing a guttural sound from her throat.

"Wait! Wait," he cried, shutting his eyes. "Wendy, here."

Her fist stopped inches from his face. She eyed the small purple gift presented to her with scrutiny.

"What is it?" she asked, putting her arm down.

He slowly opened his eyes again. "Open it."

She grabbed the package, taking it back to her side of the room. He breathed a sigh of relief.

Wendy opened the purple wrapping paper to reveal a stick of . . . deodorant?! Oh, but it got even better as she unfolded all of the packaging. The deodorant also came with a bra and some air freshener. Her eyes immediately alit with fire.

"Eric!" she screamed, her face red in fury.

"You're welcome," he said.

"I wasn't thanking you," she bit back.

"And that's why you're an ungrateful bitch," he said. "Here, I go out of my way to make you smell better than ass-crack smothered in farts and I give you a bra so that people can actually tell you're a woman, and all I get is a bunch of back sass in return."

"What makes you think I need any of this?!" Wendy argued, choosing to ignore the insult to her femininity. As if anyone but Cartman was stupid enough to tell that she was obviously a woman.

"Look, let me level with you," he replied in his professional voice. "You know as well as I do that hippies neither bathe nor wear bras, among other things I don't care to mention. And, normally, I'd say to have at it with cutting loose because it might scare away the competition, but . . . I don't think it's going to benefit us in any way if no one's around to give us any money since we all know a hippies' pits are enough to clear a room."

He continued. "It's really a gift for both of us, if you think about it. Now, you don't have to stink like a rat's ass and we all don't have to smell you."

Wendy read the labeling on the deodorant stick aloud. "Extra . . . strength?!" she exclaimed. "This is so offensive, I don't even know where to begin!"

"You can begin by wearing a bra and putting on deodorant so that the rest of us don't have to die breathing in your toxic fumes. It's a well-known fact that hippies are the primary cause of global warming. All you hippies do is smoke weed all day and smell bad, which hurts the global ecosystem."

"That isn't true, you prick! And I don't even know why you gave this stuff to me. I'm not a hippie, I'm an environmentalist!" she fumed.

He shrugged. "Same thing."

"They are not the same thing, Eric. I think you should wear the bra to the contest to hold back your ginormous man-titties. And last time I checked, you don't exactly smell like daisies." Wendy said. "By your logic, you could very well be a hippie, yourself."

He frowned, his face turning red in anger. "Don't even joke about that. I'll never be one of those pot-smoking, peacekeeping hippies."

She crossed her arms. "If you don't like being called a hippie, stop trying to make others into one when they're not." She responded, shoving the "gift" back to him.

He threw the stuff on the ground. "Oh, that's fine. I do something out of the kindness of my heart and spend my hard-earned money on buying you a gift—something you couldn't even do—and you sit here and nag about it not being good enough. Women are never happy."

"Correction: Women are never happy around you," she said.

He scoffed. "Women are so happy around me."

"Your mom doesn't count, Cartman."

"I wasn't talking about my mom. I was talking about . . ." he paused, shifting his eyes away from her accusing stare. ". . . This girl."

She raised an eyebrow. "What girl?"

He hesitated. "Uh . . . S-Sarah?"

"Sarah who?" she asserted.

He bit his lip. "Sarah . . . worben . . . baker . . . ton . . . ."

"Sarah worbenbakerton? I've never heard of her," she replied.

"Well, that's because you've never met her. My bitch doesn't associate with hoes," he said, puffing his chest out.

"So, what you're saying is, she never met your mom," Wendy stated.

"Ay! My mom is not a ho!" Cartman argued. "And it just so happens that my mom hasn't met her." Then, he added. "Besides, she goes to a different school."

"When can I meet her?"

"Bitch, what'd I just say? My woman doesn't associate with hoes."

She shrugged. "Well, what school does she go to?"

"Pfft. Like I'd tell you."

She smirked. "Is it because it doesn't exist?"

"No!" he yelled. "It's just that I don't want her to catch any hippie germs."

"I don't have hippie germs, Cartman. And if you already have a girlfriend, why do you need me to be your fake wife?"

He froze. "S-Sarah Worbenheimer was busy," he stated uncertainly.

She rolled her eyes. "You can't even get her name straight. I bet she's not even real," she said.

"You're wrong," he said.

"But, even if she was real—"

"—which she is," he corrected.

She continued. "You had the gall to cheat on your own girlfriend with me?"

He gave a deep sigh. "I thought we already established this, Wendy. You can't have me."

"I don't want you!" Wendy exclaimed.

"Pfft. Yeah, like I'm supposed to believe those bedroom eyes you were giving me the other day wasn't an open invitation to fuck me."

"Bedroom eyes?! I was glaring at you!" She said. "And I was only glaring at you because you told Kenny that I could hook him up with Bebe because the two of us were tight. Now Kenny won't stop begging me about when I'm going to talk to Bebe about him."

He scratched his chin. He did vaguely recall telling Kenny that he would set him up with Bebe in exchange for covering for him with the Jew. He raised an eyebrow. "So you're saying . . . you don't want to give Kenny a chance at happiness?"

She shook her head. "That's not the point, Cartman! You can't just assume that I will help your buddies get girlfriends just because I agreed to do this contest thing with you. I mean, it's more complicated than that. We have a list and every girl has to vote and—"

Cartman yawned loudly, interrupting her. "All I'm hearing is a lot of excuses. Are you going to help him or not?"

"No!" Wendy exclaimed.

He frowned. "Why not?"

"Because I'm not going to do something just because you want me to!" she argued. "If you want something done for you so bad, talk to your fake girlfriend, who, by the way, is probably just your hand dressed in makeup, but leave me out if it!"

With that, she stormed past him, thrusting open the door, and she exited the room. The door slammed behind her.

Cartman stood there in shock for a few moments before regaining his composure. "Yeah? Well . . . you're a hippie!" he shouted back lamely . . . to no one.

…

 

…

A couple of hours later, Cartman and Wendy were in a taxi riding over to Jay Sea Penney. After Cartman's repeated insistence that she not wear any of the clothes she brought with her to the game show interview because the clothes could potentially give away her identity and Wendy's less than flattering words concerning his intelligence for not informing her that they would be going shopping before she brought the clothes, they finally settled into less-than-comfortable silence in the taxi. However, as always, Cartman had to go and ruin it.

"So, I was thinking," he began.

"That's a first," she replied.

He flipped her off. "I was thinking," he continued. "that we should talk about how we're going to breach the sex subject when the interviewers ask us questions about our sex life. You know it's coming."

She shrugged. "What's there to talk about? You say it's good and I say it's moderately acceptable. Simple as that."

"Moderately accept—first of all, moderately and my name shouldn't even be used in the same sentence. If anything, I'm light years above average."

She rolled her eyes.

"And second, we need to at least be a little more detailed about our sex life if anyone's going to believe us. And that, Wendy, comes with experience."

"Uh-huh," she replied, unconvinced. "And just what do you suggest we do to make our sex life story more believable?" The taxi driver raised an eyebrow.

His honey eyes twinkled. "Take your clothes off and let me pee in your cha-cha."

She blinked. "What?"

Cartman sighed heavily. "In order for us to do it, you have to let me stick my hoo-hoo dilly in your cha-cha and then let me pee in it. That's how married couples are supposed to make sweet love down by the fire," he explained.

Wendy stared at him as if he'd grown two heads.

"What? No it isn't!" she countered.

"Yeah-huh, my mom said so."

"Cartman, I seriously doubt that's what your mom actually said," Wendy argued, "and even if that were true, there's no way I would do something like that. Especially with you." She paused for a moment. "Besides, we're like, ten years old!" she added. "And this is just pretend! We're not actually a couple!"

He held his hands up in defense. "Alright, alright. If you're just gonna bitch at me the whole time and kill the mood, we'll just say that we did it. That way, we don't actually have to do it," Cartman relented. "We'll just have to use our imagination."

"Just as long as you don't say that you pee in my cha-cha, I think that'll work just fine."

He gave a curt nod. "Very nice," he said. "Next stop, to the department store."

He clapped his hands twice earning a scowl from the taxi driver.

…

 

…

Cartman stepped out of the men's dressing room.

Wendy blinked, her eyes never leaving his outfit. "Whoa, Cartman, you look—"

"Sexy, I know. You can quit undressing me with your eyes now, Wendy."

She frowned. "I was going to say, 'ridiculous', but go right ahead and feed your ego with even more delusions," she replied, "And I wasn't staring at you because I thought you were sexy. I was staring out of shock because that has to be the stupidest disguise ever." She gave him another once-over.

Cartman was currently wearing a red T-shirt and big glasses with fuzzy eyebrows, a big nose, and a fake mustache.

He rose an eyebrow. "What ever do you mean, Wendy?" he asked sweetly.

She scowled. "You know what I mean, Cartman," she said, not buying his innocent approach for one second. "Is that really the best disguise you could come up with?"

"Yes."

"You're kidding," she asserted. "Are you trying to get us caught?"

"I'm not trying to do anything. All I'm doing is finding a suitable disguise that won't raise any suspicion as to my true identity."

"Then explain to me why your shirt says, 'I am not Eric Cartman.'"

He shrugged. "Because I'm not."

She slapped a hand to her forehead. "Unbelievable," she muttered. "No one's going to be that stupid to believe you're not Eric Cartman."

 

…

"I can't believe no one discovered that you're Eric Cartman yet," Wendy said. "I really have to wonder if I'm the only one with common sense in this world. I can't tell if people are actually blind or just stupid."

"You're just biased because you know it's me," Cartman replied, walking with her down a red carpet to two double doors. "If I hadn't shown you my disguise, you would've sworn that I am just a common day plebian. I'm smarter than you give me credit for."

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever, Cartman."

"Ah, ah, ah. What did we talk about on the way here?"

"I'm not going to call you that name."

"I'm afraid you don't have much choice. The ids we carry already go by that name," he replied confidently.

"I'm not using that name, Cartman," she asserted. "What made you think that I wanted my name to be hippy dippy? Let alone crotch as a last name." Tch. Knowing Cartman, he probably came up with the name hippy as a loophole to the "no name-calling" rule. 

"It describes you perfectly."

"And you?" she asked. "You really don't see any problem with people calling us 'the Crotches?'"

"Nope," he replied. "Besides, what does it matter? No one even knows it's us."

"Remarkably," she huffed. She supposed he did have a point though. While it might be incredibly degrading to her self-esteem to be named after a sex organ, she decided that as long as people would never know who she truly was, there was no harm in it. However . . . there was one thing that bothered her.

"Why did I have to wear the same shirt?" she asked, pointing to her red T-shirt that said "I am not Eric Cartman."

He shrugged. "Because you're not Eric Cartman," he said.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, because that wasn't already apparent."

"It got us in here right?"

Touché. She thought.

The young couple entered the two double-doors and approached a middle-aged brown-haired balding man behind a desk.

"Name?" he asked, not looking up from the stack of papers on his desk.

"Jo Momma Crotch," Cartman stated confidently.

The man gave a curt nod, writing the name down without looking up. "And the lovely lady?"

Cartman gave a quick glance at Wendy. "She's my ho."

Wendy gave a quick jab into his rib cage. "Ow!" he yelped.

"I'm his wife, Hippy Dippy Crotch," she said.

He wrote the name down and looked up. "Okay, Mr. and Mrs. Crotch. You two are free to—" He stopped, blinking twice. Then, he eyed them suspiciously. "Hey, aren't you two a little young to be entering a marriage game show?" he asked.

Wendy looked at Cartman with a raised eyebrow. "Now what?"

"Don't worry, honey. I'll handle this," Cartman said quickly, pushing her behind him.

He fixed the balding man with a glare. "If you are basing your opinion on our height sir, you are seriously mistaken. It's already hard enough that my wife and I are often afraid to go out in public because our appearance cause others to confuse us for children. In fact, it's the reason we came to this game show competition. We wanted to show the world that there is happiness, even for people with our condition."

The man eyed them with scrutiny. "What condition?"

"We have dwarfism, sir."

Wendy shot Cartman a look. He can't be serious.

The balding man frowned "But . . . aren't midgets supposed to have big heads?"

Cartman glared. "Oh! So just because some of us happen to have big heads, we all have to have big heads too?" he exclaimed.

The man's eyebrows shot upwards. "Well, no but—"

"Are you saying that this fine establishment discriminates against people with our condition?"

The man put his hands up in defense. "No, no of course not! Please. Sorry for the trouble. The two of you are free to go in. Just go straight ahead to the lounge area where you'll find a waiting room."

Cartman smiled victoriously. "Thank you," he said. He held out an arm to Wendy. "Come along dear."

Wendy rolled her eyes. "Sure, honey-bunch," she replied sweetly, taking his arm and squeezing a little too hard. Cartman chose to ignore the pain.

The two continued up ahead a few steps before Cartman stopped, looking back. "Oh, and for the record sir, the correct term is 'little people.' Your other term for us was quite offensive, and my wife and I have half a mind to report you unless . . . ." he trailed off.

The man looked cautiously in both directions before his eyes fell on Cartman's. He bit his lip. "Unless?"

Cartman's grin widened, knowing that the man had fallen right into his trap. "Unless," he began. "you find it in your heart to put in a good word for us, so that it's very likely that we'll get a callback. That is, of course, if you want this job and you don't want to forever be labelled as a heartless creep."

The balding man sighed. He nodded. "I'll make sure the two of you get a call back."

Cartman smirked. "Very nice. I'll be expecting a call from someone shortly with the good news. I'm so happy that little people everywhere will soon have the courage to not only put themselves out there when meeting people, but will also have more confidence in themselves. And you, sir, will have made that future possible." He continued walking with Wendy in tow. "Good day, sir."

Wendy looked to the boy next to her who was grinning proudly. She couldn't help but feel slightly impressed. While Cartman was clearly cheating his way into getting the money through manipulation, he had a certain charm about him that was making it a little hard for her to hate him as much. In addition, his intelligence in finding ways to get what he wanted made her respect him a little more, even if how he went about it was deceitful. But as long as it got her closer to earning the money she needed to build an indoor sanctuary for the marine life in Stark's Pond, she couldn't complain. She would see this thing through to the end, even if it meant spending more time with Cartman.

...

 

…

In the waiting room, Cartman and Wendy were surrounded by crowds of hopeful couples waiting for their names to be called for their interview. For a room filled with hundreds of people, the room was eerily quiet. Sure, there were a few whispers, the occasional cough, and the fuzzy sound of a mini TV tuned to a football game in the background, but other than that, the room was quiet enough to hear the sound of a pen drop. In fact, a pen had dropped at least three times in the two hours that they had been waiting.

Cartman and Wendy sat at a table in the corner consisting of a nice-looking elderly couple, a middle-aged couple that was dressed like they just got back from vacation, and a young couple that looked like Steve Urkel's long-lost cousins. There was complete silence at the table, no one trying to catch the other's eyes lest they be obligated to delve into a drawn-out conversation. However, after constant nervous glances in his direction, followed by sharp head turns away from him, the silence was starting to wear on Cartman's patience. He decided to break the silence.

"Well, this is awkward," he said, bored.

Wendy turned to him sharply. "Jo," she hissed, jabbing him in the ribs. "Don't be rude."

Cartman bit back a curse. "Ouch!" he said, glaring at her. "What, hippy? I'm just saying what everyone else is thinking."

"Just because it is awkward, doesn't mean you should actually say it."

"Why?"

"Because it makes people feel bad, that's why!"

"Well, it makes me feel uncomfortable when everyone's acting all shifty-eyed and that guy over there won't quit staring and breathing on me like I've got his inhaler," he argued, pointing to nerdy guy at the table. "There, you see, he's doing it again!"

The guy in question, immediately turned away.

"Jo!" Wendy said. She mouthed a soft apology for her husband's rudeness.

"Hippy," Cartman countered. "Don't act like you weren't annoyed by that asshole's breathing too."

Wendy sighed heavily. He was totally right, but that didn't mean he had to throw it in the guy's face. "That still doesn't give you the right to be rude about it! He probably has asthma. He can't help it," she said, slightly uncomfortable with the fact that the nerdy man could probably hear everything they were saying about him. "Besides, Stan has it too and you hang out with him all the time."

"Stan doesn't stare at me and breathe in my face."

"Well, if it bothers you that much, then move," she argued.

He snorted. "Yeah, like that's going to happen. In case you haven't noticed, there aren't any chairs left and I refuse to wait without a seat."

She frowned at the memory of Cartman shoving an elderly woman aside with his hip just as she was about to sit in the chair that he wanted. At least that got that elderly man out of her own chair when he rushed over to her his wife. "I remember," she muttered. "Well, find something else to keep you occupied."

"There's nothing to do, and I'm tired of waiting."

"You know, you could offer something to the conversation if you're that bored."

He looked at her like she was stupid. "I just did, hippy. Remember? 'Well, this is awkward,'"

"Not what I had in mind, Jo."

"So? It worked didn't it?" He said, nodding his head to the people at the table now watching them in interest.

Wendy gave them a weak smile. She turned her attention back to Cartman.

"I didn't mean make a complete spectacle of ourselves," she whispered.

"Oh hippy, ever the high-maintenance bitch, I see!"

She narrowed her eyes. "Don't call me a bitch, fatass!"

"Well then, don't call me a fatass, ho!" Cartman argued.

She stood up in fury. "That's it! This conversation is over!" she shouted, causing everyone in the room to look at them. If things were awkward before, they definitely were now.

A voice on the intercom broke the tension.

"Will the Crotches please report to Room C? The judges are ready to see you," a woman's voice on the intercom said.

"Finally!" Cartman replied, grinning. He got up from the table and headed towards the door. He stopped when he noticed no one following him. "Hippy?"

Wendy blinked, immediately forgot her anger. "Um, right," she said, her face red. She hurried along after him.

Cartman smiled at her. "Nice work, ho. Way to set us apart. That will keep them going on about us for days," he whispered, once she was next to him.

"Stop calling me a ho," she groaned, hating that her getting all riled up was probably his plan all along. She had to admit though. Cartman did make things a lot less awkward. She watched as everyone was now whispering to one another and discreetly pointed to the two of them.

…

 

…

Back in the hotel room, Cartman laid sprawled across the bed, causally flipping through the channels.

Wendy, however, was a bucket of nerves. She waited anxiously by the phone, wishing that one of the game show representatives would call them back soon.

"I don't get how you're so calm right now," she said, looking to Cartman. "It's not like our interview was phenomenal. I mean, you told them that we were married for forty-three years for goodness sakes."

Cartman rolled his eyes. "What are you so worried about? The man at the front desk said he would get us in, didn't he?" he said. "And besides, forty-three years would have been fine had you not chimed in that we were only married for eighteen years."

She frowned. "Cartman, that guy could have been lying. You have no proof that he even called us midgets in the first place, or that we even are little people to begin with," she replied. "And of course I did! No one in their right mind would believe that we have been married for that long. And it's not like you made things any better by saying that it felt like forty-three years. That almost made it seem like it was a pain to be married to me. "

"It is a pain to be married to you, but the story is, I love you so much that I'm willing to stay with your butt, even if it feels like forty-three years," he explained. "And just trust me. We'll get a call back." He raised the volume to the TV to drown her out. The TV was turned to Terrance and Phillip.

She rolled her eyes. "You're so impos-"

BRING! BRING!

She stopped, her eyes widened. The phone was ringing. "Cartman, would you turn down the volume? Someone's on the phone," she shouted against the TV's volume.

No effort was made to turn down the volume.

She felt like pulling out her hair. God, she was married to a complete asshole. She picked up the phone.

"Hello?" she answered. She blinked, her eyes lit up. "Oh! We did? That's great news! Thank you so much! Yes, I understand. We'll be there by noon tomorrow. Okay, bye!" She put the phone back on the receiver.

She noted that the volume to the TV had miraculously muted when she hung up.

Cartman fixed her with a shit-eating grin. "I was right, wasn't I?"

She sighed. Of course all he'd be concerned about is proving if he was right. "Yes, Cartman. You were right. We just got a call back to return tomorrow. Filming for all the game show contestants begins at three, but they want us to be there by noon to do all the preparations."

His grin only grew. "Told you so," he bragged, leaning back on his pillow. "Won't be long now until I get my money."

"You mean our money, and let's not get ahead of ourselves," she warned. "We're going to be facing a lot of competition tomorrow. We're up against a total of sixteen couples."

"Pfft. Easy," he replied, waving her off. "If we were able to beat out hundreds of married couples today without actually being married, then beating out sixteen more will be a breeze. After all, you can't spell awesome without 'me.'"

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever, Cartman. Just make sure you stick to the agreement we made, and we won't have any problems," she said. "Oh, and by the way, we should actually plan out what we're going to say so that we at least get our stories straight when they ask us questions. Remember, we've been married for eighteen years, not forty-three."

"But it feels like forty-three," he said.

She threw a pillow at him. "Shut up, Cartman."

The pillow hit him in the face. "Ay!" he exclaimed. "Look, I got us in here, okay? Just keep your mouth shut, and let me do the talking tomorrow."

"Yeah, as if I'm going to just let you sit there and say embarrassing stuff about me on national TV."

"I won't. I swear," Cartman promised.

She threw another pillow at him, which he barely caught. "Ay, quit it!" he exclaimed.

"I'm not stupid, Cartman. Your word means nothing."

He frowned, sitting up on his bed. "Wendy, I'm seriously. I won't say anything embarrassing about you tomorrow. Just trust me."

She was silent, her eyes searching his for any traces of deception.

"If I do, I swear, I'll let you sock me as many times as you want with that pillow," he said, his honey eyes never leaving hers.

She bit her lip. "Fine," she relented. "But I hope you know that there's going to be a lot more underneath that pillowcase than a pillow if you do fuck with me."

"I won't fuck you, Wendy. I won't."

…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys liked this chapter! Until next time...cheers!

**Author's Note:**

> The ball starts rolling next chapter as Cartman works his manipulating magic. Also, please note: this chapter was written before Johnny Depp got married, but the story as a whole includes his change in marital status.


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